And welcome to another edition of The Movie Crypt. I'm Adam Green. I'm Joe Lynch. This episode was recorded on Tuesday, November 26, 2024, even though it's... Not going to be running until mid-January, but you guys all know why we've been doing that at this point. This conversation is really interesting because it's something kind of outside our usual... This is a true crime podcast, and it's about a scandal that I'm going to guess many of you.
probably aren't even aware of. And it's one of the biggest scandals in music, and it's one that everyone should know about. You'll hear us get into this a little bit more later in the conversation, but... We're heading into this period. I mean, really, we're already there where it's getting really hard to tell what's real and what isn't. And what if the record labels behind beloved artists, you know, what if it was...
Prince? What if it was Tom Petty? Just name somebody. And they're like, oh, here's a live show that you've never heard before. And then fans start to realize this isn't real. We'll say no more, but the podcast is called Faking Michael. There's 13 episodes. They're about an hour each. You can catch it wherever you listen to podcasts. I believe it's even available on YouTube, even though it's audio only.
but it is fantastic. And the production value that went into this. I was so blown away by that. And we talk about like a lot of, it's not just about the Michael Jackson scandal, but it's. very much about the process that he takes from scripting it. 14 years to put this thing together. Not that he was like, in 14 years, I'm going to get to a point where I'm going to tell a podcast. Obviously he had...
you know, very honest intentions of why he was investigating this and why. So people understand too, because as soon as you say Michael Jackson and scandal, people start thinking of the accusations. No, this is about the posthumous record that came out about a year after Michael. passed and fans immediately were like that's not Michael Jackson on three of these songs that's an impersonator and the long journey it took and he lays out
All the evidence makes the case. And the happy ending is that two years ago, finally Sony and the estate removed those fake tracks. Can you get them anywhere now? Like on bootlegs and stuff? I'm sure they're still on YouTube. I mean, I have the original. album that came out so i have them and anyway um we'll shut up and get to this but definitely check out faking michael it is available anywhere again even if you're not a michael jackson fan it is such a great story and the way.
that Damien and his whole team put this thing together. For any of you out there who are like, man, I'm tired of waiting for my chance to find a budget to make an actual film or to tell this story that I want to tell, this is yet another great example of... a way to kind of pivot and still tell great stories even though this one is a true story but still any type of story and as you'll hear Damien had no experience doing this stuff and still found a way
Also making news is the controversy surrounding the release of a new Michael Jackson album titled Michael. This is one of the most controversial music projects ever. The album any Michael Jackson fans have been waiting for. Michael hits store shelves today. With ten never-before-heard songs recorded before his death. Producer Eddie Cascio says Michael recorded some of the songs in Cascio's home studio. He recorded right there in my basement. But diehard fans aren't buying what Cascio has to say.
I just listened to Breaking News, the new Michael Jackson song. A lot of controversy about this song, and I don't think it's him. I really don't. Everybody, all the fans, everybody's saying that they don't believe it's Michael. This song is fake. That's not Michael's voice. It doesn't even sound like him fake. It's not even his voice.
I'm flabbergasted. It's definitely not Michael Jackson. I got into you. That's not Michael. They can't bullshit me, man. That's not Michael's voice. That ain't no Michael Jackson. He does not sound like that. Controversy is already swirling around the new Michael Jackson CD. Is the pop icon singing on every track? People are out there trying to decide, is this Michael or is this not Michael? I can tell you that it is Michael's voice.
for sure it is him. Because you can hear the authenticity in his voice. Sony's epic records guarantees the album's authenticity. We picked a side. We said it's Michael. But according to TMZ, Jackson's family says the tracks are fakes, sung by a Michael impersonator. Everybody knows the story of like Milli Vanilli and how it turned out they weren't really.
the singers and they had won a Grammy. They had to give it back. It was a huge scandal in the music industry, but one that not enough people are talking about is the fact that about a year after Michael Jackson died, Sony put out. a posthumous record called Michael and three of the songs on it. Fans were immediately like, that's not Michael Jackson singing. Yeah. That's an impersonator. And so our guest has spent 14 years. 14 years. Holy crap.
14 years investigating this and has a podcast series that's out now called faking Michael, where it goes through the whole process exhaustively. It's sound designed. It's scored. It's such a production. As opposed to this show. Yes. He's also a published author. Please welcome to the Movie Crypt, Damien Shields. Thank you for having me, guys.
This is where you just heard the same sound effect we've used for two to three years. A bunch of little kids clapping in unison. Well, not just little kids, but because we record over Zoom. whenever we cheer we cut out yeah so we had to record us cheering separately that we put in so if we always sound equally as excited for each guest that's why yeah but we are equally excited so
We're recording this on a Tuesday, but it's actually Wednesday where you are, Damien, in Australia. So thank you for doing this because we know it's early in the morning for you. My pleasure. I guess you could spoil it. Donald Trump didn't win, did he? Oh.
He won. God damn it. Before we even get into the podcast, let's talk about your book because you had Michael Jackson's Songs and Stories from the Vault. That was technically... a revised version of your first book right or or did it not come out in its first state i initially wrote a book called escape origins which was basically uh
My response to an album that the Michael Jackson estate and Sony Music put out with a collection of unreleased songs that Michael Jackson had recorded during his life, never released them, and then the record company and the estate went through his vault. And they found these songs, they put them together, they reproduced them with current day producers and they postured it as a new album, a new Michael Jackson album. And I felt when that album came out, there was far too much emphasis on...
the fact that they were really promoting the remixes and what people like Timberland had done with the songs. And it was almost as if they didn't care where they came from. They didn't care what the origins of the songs were. and the anatomy of the craftsmanship that Michael himself put, in some cases with some of these songs, more than a decade of work into.
they just focused on, hey, look, we've got these big flashy producers to basically delete all of Michael's music, keep his vocals, and just give you a whole new contemporized version of what he did decades ago. And as... a historian a michael jackson you know fan i thought well that's not what i'm interested in i'm interested in where these songs come from how they came to be so i decided i would
look into it, see if I could write an article or something interesting that fans could go to to say, well, this is the origins of these songs. And the producers that originally worked on the original versions before. Michael died they were really forthcoming with information and it ended up being so much information that I decided to write a book however it was very niche and very
targeted directly at Michael Jackson fans in the first version. There was a kind of a, I brought a foreword or a prologue or whatever at the beginning.
kind of attacking the estate and Sony for not having faith in the original versions and just believing that they needed to bring contemporary people in to make it relevant. And the artwork was kind of a take on the... escape album artwork and it was all very much just like here is a book for michael jackson fans so i didn't i wasn't didn't sit comfortably with me that it could be appealing beyond the michael jackson echo chamber so i re
branded it i gave it a new title a new artwork and i rewrote the book and i re-released it so it's this essentially it's the same book um just with a little bit of expansion a bit more information postured slightly differently in its intro and yeah, different artwork, but essentially the same book. Did you see a reflection in sales after doing that? Not really because...
it didn't end up managing to penetrate beyond the Michael Jackson echo chamber. So the second version, it didn't become this thing that spread far and wide. It's independently published. I don't have... like a marketing budget or anything like that. But for me, it was more so, I just wanted to feel comfortable that when this is sitting on the Amazon shelves and someone might stumble upon it, it will be more appealing.
and more broadly appealing to a non-Michael Jackson fan who's just an intellectual music reader who wants to learn about the anatomy of craftsmanship, it would look more appealing to them just based on... the artwork and how it's presented. And then coming into the, you know, the intro that I've written for it, if I kind of.
a little bit more calm about the way i'm explaining why explaining why i wrote the book because like the truth is i wrote the book because i was outraged that the michael jackson estate and sony had put this album together with eight songs from Michael Jackson's vault and really not told us where they came from. And especially after the first posthumous album, the Michael album, which was such a scandal.
I thought, well, I have an opportunity here to at least tell people where these songs come from so that if anyone's skeptical of their authenticity or if anyone's got questions, like the book will answer the questions. But yeah, I just wanted to... reposture it in the public so that when people found it, it would be more kind of, you know, palatable for everybody. When you're going to do something like this though, and you're going to start reaching out to producers and, and.
Studio engineers and people who actually worked with Michael Jackson. How do you go about that? Kind of just sort of cold calling them and and getting them to actually be receptive and speak to you because a lot of the people in michael's real camp they don't they won't talk to press or media because everyone's had enough of press and media who's had anything to do with with that man's life well in the in the case of the book um it wasn't cold calling because i'd established
pretty much all of the relationships with all of the people that I interviewed for that book for the Faking Michael project. And as you said earlier, I've been on the Faking Michael.
project for 14 years since 2010 so the book was basically just me taking a short break from the faking michael project which was kind of bringing me down a little bit it was not going in the direction I wanted it to we we weren't successful with a couple of ventures that we'd gone down to try and you know bring it to fruition and I just needed something a little bit more positive and a little bit more refreshing to work on so I thought well I've
got these connections already that I established through the Faking Michael project. And I'll just hit these guys up and say, look, I'm going to take a bit of a detour. I want to write this book about Michael's actual art. Do you want to be part of that?
And everyone was pretty excited to do it. And so it was fairly easy. But to establish those relationships for the Faking Michael project, that was a struggle. That was difficult because I'm just some cowboy in Australia who... isn't part of that world i wasn't a known author or journalist i don't have a journalism degree i didn't have any footing in the music industry whatsoever my name was not known by anybody
And so what I actually had to do was basically jump on a plane and fly to the US and meet with people face to face and prove to them that I am who I say I am and that my intentions are what I say they are and that I do care about Michael's art and that I am.
In this particular instance, I was searching for the truth about the Michael album and the fake songs that were on it. And so once I had been able to establish my own... intentions and the credibility of the work i was doing with the people those relationships have endured since so i'm still in contact with a lot of the people that i formed those relationships with over a decade ago and if i do need anything although i don't actively do much
you know, Michael Jackson work these days other than the Faking Michael project. If I do need them, they're just a text message or a phone call away and they're always receptive. I want to go back just like not to derail the conversation, but I'm so curious because, I mean, Adam, you've known Damien's work. You exposed me to Damien's work recently.
so fascinated with how your love and your appreciation for Michael started like we've talked about this before we're like can you recall what was like for you the the song or the moment i mean he was the king of pop but he was also a multimedia like So, you know, some people could say it was the video for Thriller or it was Captain EO or obviously if it was off the wall or what have you. What was it for you that got you on?
like your passion for Michael Jackson enough to want to be able to research him and be able to investigate and even defend him at times. So I'd say there were three key moments I can remember first. my first exposure to him over a long period of time. And it took quite a period of time for me to actually think this is something interesting that I want to know more about. I think I was three years old, 1991.
in australia we have two different kind of mtv style channels and well they're not channels they're just television programs that appear in the morning on the weekend One is called Video Hits and the other one is called Rage. And I mentioned both of them because I can't remember which one it was. But they count down the top 40 songs or the top 40 videos of the time each week. It's like a chart type of thing, but they splice in.
you know, a hit from previous years every now and then to keep it, you know, interesting for people that don't want to just hear the hit, the current music. And I saw a video and it was the way you make me feel. the music video. And I said to my dad, I said, dad, is that a boy or a girl? And he said, that's Michael Jackson.
I thought perfect answer at the time I was like I don't know I don't know who I don't know who Michael Jackson is but like okay so you didn't answer my question but I guess he did and that made no sense to me at all at the time But looking back on it, it makes it, you know, it's an interesting answer for someone who has no...
My dad has no insight about the artistry of Michael Jackson and the career and the information about his world. He was just such an icon that you could just say that. I'm not putting him in a box. No, exactly. He didn't put himself in a box in a way. But the fact that you can know when you when you said that, it was almost like it wasn't a dig. It was just, of course, since, you know, the early 80s, since Adam and I were growing up.
like you when you said michael jackson he was his own person in so many facets that like when you said that you go that's fair yeah that makes sense you know Well, as a three-year-old, I didn't understand what the answer was. It didn't mean anything to me at the time. It only means something looking back. But yeah, he can't be categorized. He's an artist for the world. How many times did you get to actually...
See him live. Never. Oh, I was going to say, neither did shit. Neither did we, I was hoping because you live in Australia. Because it seems like everyone in other countries had so many chances. But in America, after the Bad Tour, it was like... that 30th anniversary Jackson show right before September. Was it after bad that he started to go more exclusively European? Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So, I mean, it makes sense on it, honestly. But we were like 12 when bad came out. Yeah.
So, yeah. Well, he came here. He came to Australia in 1996. And that's my second exposure to him. At the time when he came here, we had a television show called Hey, Hey, It's Saturday. And it was hosted by the very famous Australian music journalist, Molly Meldrum. And he hosted this kind of show, which was basically just 40 minutes worth of the history world tour. broadcast and i didn't watch it live i wasn't i didn't know it was happening at the time but my auntie taped it on a vhs and
I remember being at her house about a year after it happened and I was bored and I knew that I had a bunch of VHS tapes with Australian football games taped on them. And I'm a huge Australian football fan. I'm like digging through her tape box and going, okay, that's a game I want to watch a replay of. And so I put the tape in and she had taped over the football game that I wanted to watch with the history tour.
And initially, I'm seeing Molly Meldrum intro, and I'm like, you have got to be kidding me. At this time, I was nine, nine years old, and I've... I was furious that this football game had been taped over. I was like, I can't believe you would do this. Like, you know how much this football game means to me. Like, why would you tape over? It's gone forever now. But then there was a history tour underneath it. And it was interesting.
captured me i watched it never watched it again because that was in my auntie's house in her tape collection i never saw the tape again and then four years later the other show that you just mentioned was the 30th anniversary shows which is the one that finally caught me in a moment where i was old enough to say that's interesting and i want to know a little bit more and you know i was 13 when the 30th anniversary
show came out. And for listeners who don't know what the 30th anniversary is, it celebrates the 30th anniversary of Michael Jackson's solo career and a reunion with his brothers, which is a big show that they did at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Wasn't that on September 9th or something? It was September 7th and 10th. Yes, 7th and 10th. So the morning they woke up from it. They edited it together as a special. I was in New York at the time and I was covering the event.
And they made such a big deal about how it was that Marlon Brando was there. And there were all these different like. you know, icons that who he knew, like Elizabeth Taylor and everything. We ended up getting an interview with her at like outside of Madison Square Garden, not realizing that the world was going to change the next day. That's not funny, but it was up until that point.
When Michael Jackson came into town, even with any of the controversy that was surrounding him at that point in 2001, I remember the entire city. lit up because it was like you know when whenever i mean i don't know if it's the same thing for you damien but like when the when the president like lands in la in most cases like everyone's like not only do they go like
oh shit, the traffic's going to suck. But it's like, there's a buzz in the air. Maybe not for our current president, but in most cases, anytime that the president was like, in your vicinity, there was an excitement in the air. And when Michael Jackson was there for those days... He was on every single paper. He was in all the news, where he was going, what he was doing. There was a Planet Hollywood at the time in Times Square, and he essentially...
I don't know if you remember this or if this was in any books, Adam. He bought everybody's dinner that night when he was there.
because he walked in and it caused a disrupt a disruption you know and he ended up like when he walked out he said everybody like i'm getting everybody's tab oh i've never heard that one yeah uh and that made like the post that was the news you know it's like michael jackson picks up all that captain crunch chicken at planet hollywood to be fair so but he was like so significant you know and and i don't think any star can can match that still to this day no i never
I don't think it ever will. I mean, as huge as Taylor Swift is, which is incredible to see, it's never going to be that again. It just won't. But... kind of jumping ahead a little bit here to the faking michael podcast so the the first posthumous album comes out michael i got it right away in fact i remember uh this was like i i had high speed internet but like i wasn't i've never been into downloading music and stuff i always try to buy the vinyl if it exists or i would
purchase it on CD or whatever, but I remember getting that CD, but I had heard breaking news online and I didn't really think anything of it. But then I saw in comments and stuff, there were so many fans. It was immediate. It wasn't like a couple days and people were starting to go, wait a second. It seemed like immediately people were talking about it. Yeah. And it was just a lot of comments like, that's not him.
That's not Michael Jackson singing. And I look, I have this. I don't want, I don't want to say love hate. That's not the right word. I love the Michael Jackson fan community, but I do. It does test my patience. at times mainly because i'm such a um such a defender of him and i don't think it helps sometimes when fans are like you know if you want to in reference like the the really bad allegations when they're like there's no way he did it because he's the greatest singer of all time
That doesn't help. No, that's not, that's not why he didn't do it. He didn't do it because of the facts and just take an hour and educate yourself before you, because.
you you're just giving people fodder to be like oh his fans are just sick of fans and they refuse to believe like it doesn't help and so when i saw that early reaction i was like well yeah it's a song we've never heard before so yeah maybe he sounds a little different in this i don't know but then as time went on and then it was monster
which people were like, it's not him. And then when the Jason Malachi stuff came up, I didn't know who Jason Malachi was at the time, but I remember seeing that name start getting posted. Like it's like a Michael Jackson impersonator. And I didn't really know what to think. But it became more and more real. But you apparently immediately dove in being like, I'm going to crack this and find out and dispend.
14 years putting this thing together. And, and this is the point I want to make sure people understand. Maybe you're not the world's biggest Michael Jackson fan, or you're not interested in ever making your own podcasts or, or. uh deep dive audio true crime series But the amount of work that you put into this thing, I can't say it enough. I mean, the score, all the editing, the audio clips, all the people you interviewed.
Like you, you make the case so compellingly solid, even constantly going to like, well, what if, or well, this is what they had to say or whatever. And. I know I'm jumping around here a bit, but I feel like before we even get into this, we have to just talk about both of our disdain for the Michael Jackson estate. I just... You're managing the catalog and the legacy of the greatest pop icon of all time, probably the greatest musician of all time.
and they do such a poor job at it like where are the box sets where are the high def versions of like you know in the past couple years we finally got an hd version or a 4k version of of thriller on youtube and ghosts sort of but like where's all the other stuff man like we want to buy it why is the merch the worst for any local bands have better merch than they have on that michael jackson website it's appallingly bad um so sorry i had to get that out of the way but
But knowing that you're going to go on this deep dive, at some point you're going to butt heads with the estate or at least the estate's narrative. Did that intimidate you at all? Well, initially I thought... wow, the estate should really know about this. I better contact them because once they know that this is not Michael and this is Jason Malachi, they'll choose not to release these songs. Because keep in mind...
The way this unfolded, just for any listener who isn't familiar with the chronology, the Michael album was released in the middle of December 2010, but Sony and the estate gave us... breaking news with that online link that you were mentioning earlier, five weeks prior to the album being released. It was the 8th of November, 2010. So we had five weeks of knowing that there was going to be at least one.
fake song on this album and having heard it ourselves being having the conviction to say that song is not him let's do something about it so initially i thought well If I just contact John Branca from the Michael Jackson estate and tell him what's going on here, then surely he'll...
look at that and say, wow, we can't allow this to happen. We can't allow fake songs to be released. And then they'll go back to the original producers who sold them the songs and say, the deal is off. We're not releasing your songs. The fans have overwhelmingly said that these songs are fake. It's off. And so I did that. I contacted Tom Branker and he didn't reply, but I did get a response from somebody else who, you know, handles the fan communication for him.
who basically just said, shut up, stop whinging. You're being too negative. It's really him and you can't prove that it's not. And like took no real, didn't take it seriously. And so at that moment, I was like, okay, well, I have to look into this. And that all happened really quickly, like within a matter of days of obviously knowing it's not him immediately, trying to talk sense into the estate straight away. And then...
within a few days getting shut down. And yeah, that's where the journey began. And I started with the Jackson family because... they were the people who were out there most vocally saying that this is not Michael singing. This is not our uncle. This is not, you know, Catherine was saying, that's not my son singing. And she was against the release of the songs that Catherine is Michael's mother.
And so I contacted them, not expecting that they would ever respond and said, hey, we need to do something about this. What do you want to talk? And immediately I had two of them contacting me straight back saying, yes, we're trying to stop this. We don't think we can.
but we're trying our best. And we linked up, we started emailing, then we started talking on the phone and then they invited me to come out to LA. And once I was out there in LA, I was meeting with the producers that worked with Michael during his life and the whole thing kind of snowballed into this.
14-year investigation which is what faking Michael is but it's because the Jackson family took a punt on me just this random Australian person on Twitter saying hey you guys are right that's not Michael and I'm angry and I want to stop it and they actually said you know, contacted me back and said, okay, let's work together. Like a complete stranger. They had never known my name prior to this happening. And they just, for some strange reason.
contacted me back. And that's where it started. They contacted me back when John Branker wouldn't. The state would not contact me, but the family did. I think it's your sultry voice and your long, luscious hair that I think when they looked you up, they went, this guy looks legit. You know, one thing that I really appreciated with the first episode, because the first episode definitely.
I mean, you know, in most cases, you know, the first episode of a podcast or a series is very much like any kind of long form, like true crime series. It's the one that has to entice the listener, the viewer to come, you know, to. kind of follow through in a feature it's known as the first 10 minutes or so. Um, and one thing that I really appreciated about this, because when you say a state, um,
For the longest time, whenever I would hear about the Michael Jackson estate, I thought the family was involved more. I thought that they had a stake in it. Oh my God, that's a whole other podcast. Oh, I know. The way that Damien, the way that you kind of pump the brakes and say, just FYI.
This is the separation between family and the estate that that really kind of set the stage for me to say, like when you were talking about how some family members were immediately reaching out to you, you know, there's a lot more complexity. to this than what I think a lot of people thought myself included that When you when you talk about the estate, you think, and I guess in most cases, I always thought like at least someone from the family was represented in a more direct way, not.
John McClane, which I can't not think of. Every time he would get a case, he'd be like, Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker. And the other dude, too. Thank you. I really appreciated how you... structured that first episode to allow the audience to know immediately what the stakes were, who was invested, who was involved, and let the audience kind of...
you know, be in on it from a very objective point of view. That's what's so fantastic about this podcast is that you, and I'm glad that you started with talking about the book and Where you you had some reservations thinking maybe this is only for fans in the Michael Jackson fan community bubble because you don't even need to be the world's You don't even really even need to be a Michael Jackson fan to appreciate this podcast because it's the fact that the biggest...
the biggest musician to ever live and their estate allowed this to happen. And then. basically actively tried to cover it up for 12 years and it was the fans who had to finally bring it to an end it was only not to spoil things for people but it was only two years ago at this point that they finally took those three fake songs off of streaming and off of releases of the album itself, correct? Yeah, two years ago. Like it took that long.
And again, we don't want to spoil the actual podcast. It's 13 episodes. It is such a ride. But a fan actually suing them. And like, like the things that it took to finally just get this to be acknowledged when so many people knew right away. And it seemed kind of hopeless. I'd say even five years ago, I'm like. I guess these songs are just always going to be on here and
That's it. Maybe most people don't care. Maybe they're just like, oh, he sounds a little different there and they're fine with it. I don't know. But how does that happen to him? Like if this was... this is not a dig at one of my favorite bands of all time i'm just trying to think of a band that not everybody knows but love hate right yeah if
Love Hate had a record come out and they had all passed away or something. And I was going, that's not Jizzy Pearl singing. That's not Skid's bass. Nobody else would really care. But what about Van Halen? When Van Halen went from, you know. David Lee Roth to Sammy Hagar. A lot of people, and again, myself included, when I was a kid, I remember Van Halen, I thought...
David Lee Roth was Van Halen. But they weren't trying to say that it is David Lee Roth. No, but it still was a brand. Okay, fine. But that happens in life. Singers change, people quit, whatever. But this was like... This was a scandal because this record sold millions of copies around the world and it was a fraud. So when did you decide, okay, I'm going to do this as a podcast series and...
When did you realize exactly how many episodes it was going to take to do it? And then I want to get into like all the different collaborators that you had and the people that you were able to. lean on for information and interviews and stuff because it's just it's incredible but when did you when did you understand the scope of what you're about to take on did you know right away or did it just keep growing no
No, I didn't know right away and it evolved. So initially, like I said, I thought I would contact the estate. I would have a conversation with them and let them know what was really going on here. And then it would just be... it would come to an end before it even started. And when that didn't happen and the Jackson family reached out and they wanted to talk, I started to get an idea that there was a little bit more.
kind of politics going on behind the scenes than what initially seems like maybe a mistake. They kind of told me this is not a mistake. We told them about this before they went ahead and did it. They knew what they were doing when they did it. And I needed to fact check that. I needed to make sure that the Jackson family weren't just telling me their version of events, but that it was actually what they are saying is true.
And they told me about this listening session that had happened where the estate had invited all of the producers that had really worked with Michael Jackson in the studio during his life. kind of like a symposium type of thing where they would come into the room and they would all play the songs and that they would have this intellectual debate about whether it was him or not and why. And the Jacksons were telling me when they had this meeting.
The people in the room either said, I can't say one way or another, or some people were saying flat out, it's definitely not him and I don't believe it and this is why. But the estate was saying to the fans publicly, we held this meeting and everyone said it was definitely him.
So my first mission was, well, everyone the estate is saying that said it was definitely him. I need to talk to those people because I need to find out if they really said that it was definitely him or if the Jacksons are right when they say. that nobody said it was definitely him. And it turned out that each person, each new person that I spoke to was telling me the same thing that the Jacksons had told me and the exact opposite of what the estate had told us.
in an official statement broadcast all around the world. And so I was like, okay, well, maybe this is not so easy to solve because the billion dollar entity is putting out their public narrative in the media. in press releases and in their official stance and their messaging and even on the back of the album cover with the specific wording that they chose to put on there to say that it was Michael Jackson singing and they were taking one position and they're a billion dollar entity.
And then there's me who's finding all this information and I'm just like this random person in Australia. What the heck do I do with it? How do I compete against that? How do I get this information out? and be louder than what this multi-billion dollar entity is able to, how far they can speak and reach and shout and how far I can with, you know, a couple of hundred Twitter followers, it doesn't seem like a fair fight.
So initially I thought I'll post my findings on a website so people can follow the link and go there and they can look at all the evidence. But then as more and more things unfolded and I got more contacts, it was become a little bit bigger than a... website type of things like maybe this is too much for just like a web post so maybe i'll post maybe i'll do it as a book so then the mission became okay how can we present this story as a book and
That was the working idea for about maybe from 2012 to 2017, five-year period. I thought I was going to do it as a book. But podcasting really kicked off. in about 2015. And it really became clear that podcasts were the way that people prefer to consume true crime stories. And I had decided that Based on what I'd found, this was not just a Michael Jackson story. This was a true crime story. And in the scheme of history, this is an art forgery. This is not just some...
little scandal where, you know, Milli Vanilli is lip syncing on their songs. This is someone who has, or people who have collectively masterminded the falsification of songs that were. represented as being unreleased songs by Michael Jackson, but which were not unreleased songs by Michael Jackson. They were created with the intention of deceiving the world into believing that, but they were fake, which is essentially what an art forgery is.
And yeah, so I thought this could be a true crime podcast, which I love true crime podcasts. completely obsessed with true crime podcasts. I listen to every new big true crime podcast that comes out and I'm always asking my friends and family for recommendations if they've heard new ones. And I thought maybe I could make one like that.
and um i think what's so initially i hadn't initially right sorry go ahead oh no no i was just gonna say i think what's so important about this though is now this was all done with just an impersonator singing and we'll get into like who produced those tracks because that's such a betrayal as well but nowadays with ai and everything
All of us, the artists that were, whether we're currently into them or maybe they're not around anymore, you're not, you're not going to know when stuff starts coming out. Right now you can still kind of tell when something's AI, but in five, 10 years. The technology is going to be so good. And what scares me isn't even that it's inevitably going to happen, but are the powers that be behind it who stand to make money.
gonna just lie to all of us and say no these were on release recordings or this is a live show you've never heard before and it's it's not real one of the the best fake michael jackson things that i've ever heard which i listen to all the time even though i know it's fake is the the fake unplugged version where oh that's right i forgot oh yeah
But at least somebody had to perform that music and then just take his vocal tracks and put it to it. But if you let yourself believe, it's like, wow, this is the MTV Unplugged that we never got to see. Like, it sounds so good. but i know it's not real so i mean think about how ai now is going to change the game even further all of it and and we're not there's going to be tom petty stuff coming up forever print stuff and it's like is it going to be real is it not and if we can't trust
the gatekeepers who are in control and have everything to gain to at least be honest with us, which is why I think it's important for people to hear this. Well, I want to, you know, since I'm talking to two renowned.
Michael Jackson, like a specialist like yourselves. When I was listening to the show in the last couple days, one thing that came up is the the ethical vision and the representation of that vision posthumously like i've always what damien just said it's art for but it's like when when you go from like you know
stepping off this mortal coil and you're leaving these tracks where whether it was just you know like a vocal that was laid down whether he was going off of a beat whether a producer comes in like i'm fascinated with those kind of decisions that are made for
say something like Kubrick's eyes wide shut. He had only gotten that cut to a certain point before dying, and then certain things, like they brought in Spielberg to kind of supervise the cut from there, that's where they started putting the...
digital bodies over certain things. And you're sitting there going, but would Kubrick fucking go for that? But they never lied to us. No, that's true. They were upfront with exactly what they had and how they finished it. And I think that's the difference. And there was even. There was even a similar situation way back when Mozart was alive. He was commissioned to do this symphony for somebody in the final months and years of his life, and he died.
halfway through making it and the person who he was making it for agreed to allow the family to find other composers to compete and finish it and so it was you know based on the initial notes and work of mozart but it was completed by other people but it was never sold to the buyer as
the final vision of mozart it was sold to the buyer the person who had initially commissioned this as well unfortunately this can't be completed because he's dead but this is what we can offer as a way to kind of bring this to fruition in a way that you might still be happy to receive the work. And it was all honestly postured to the person who was paying for it, which is the opposite of what we've got here. Just say for argument's sake that Michael Jackson was involved with the...
conception or writing or production of the initial ideas of these fake songs, which there is no evidence to say he even was. But let's just say for argument's sake, he was involved. The estate and Sony could have said... this is Michael's unfinished vision. We have allowed other people to bring it to fruition and complete it and kind of present it to you as a, how it may have sounded.
And that would have been okay if they would have told the truth. And I think not many people would have been interested in it because if you're saying, well, he didn't finish the lyrics and we've done a whole new production on the music and Jason Malachi is singing the vocals and he is kind of like a what if, you know.
What it might have been like without Michael Jackson's final touches, without his vocals and without his production and without his perfectionism, you know, it would have been honest, but it would have been far less interesting. And that's the big problem here. This is where it becomes hugely criminal, is that it is...
It is forged work. It is falsely attributed. The authorship and the performance is falsely attributed to somebody who had nothing to do with it for the pure intention of making money by deceiving people. while telling them that it's authentic. And it's a big scandal in that way. It's also important for people to understand who produced these fake tracks, because originally there were 12.
fake tracks correct there were the three that were on the album and then there were nine more that were floating around the internet for a while and correct yes in your podcast uh i didn't know about the auction what that the casios tried to do to auction off those other nine songs on a burn cd for like 50 grand like it's oh my god it's like it's appalling but
What's really sad about it is the Casio family, they were super close with Michael while he was alive. That was like his home away from home. Those were one of very few people that he... fully trusted and then as soon as he was gone it seems like it was a how do we make money off of this now um and there's even we won't get into it but there's even
newer developments that have nothing to do with um the the podcasts or the the fake songs where it seems like the cast is maybe um doing some some gross things as well but I don't know enough about it to get into it. Is that stuff that just came out? Recently. Like after Damien's show? Might have been before Faking Michael came out. Do you know what I'm talking about, Damien? Yeah.
I would refer to it as bubbling under the surface. Yes. Oh, Lord. It's basically like a give us money or we'll make accusations too now. Wait, was bubbles involved? No, no, no, no. Oh, I said bubbling under the surface. Like, what kind of nefarious hint is that? Oh, shit. It's been reported and speculated about, but reports don't name anybody and it's fairly unsubstantiated in the public eye and it's kind of gone nowhere, but it's there.
It's just after their reputations have been so tarnished and their credibility is so shot after the fake songs. Now you're going to believe that, but okay, regardless, but that's another layer to this. this crime what the what the podcast demonstrates if you acknowledge that you know there have been accusations against michael jackson in the past and you some people believe them some people don't and if you look into them i think
The evidence leads you in very strongly in one particular direction to say that these things were shakedowns. What the podcast proves unequivocally. is that people who were very close to Michael Jackson for decades while he was alive are willing to tell a lie about Michael Jackson with their hand out for money. This podcast proves that unequivocally.
Say what you want about the other allegations. This podcast proves that that style of shakedown does happen and did happen. So you can apply that to any other allegation that you want. and say oh they wouldn't do that no one would why would you betray your friend from all these years if it wasn't you wouldn't make it up well maybe you would because in this case they did they literally said this man
who we knew for 25 years, came into our basement and recorded 12 songs when he didn't. That's just the facts. And then they put their hands out for money and they got Michael Jackson's estate to fill that hand with cash and they walked away happy as Larry. So, and it did happen in this case. You can't argue that it didn't because it definitely did. So if it's happened here, who's to say it can't happen elsewhere? It's so sad because when I first started.
in this industry and my first agent was really explaining to me it was actually my first agent and my first lawyer why you can't read like It's like they're like we know you want to be nice but somebody this is back and like my space when
our careers first started somebody trying to send you their script you cannot look at it because you don't know who's on the other side of that email they might be sending that to everybody it could be the most generic thing and then they're going to come at you Years later, if you do anything that's even in that genre and try to claim that you like people will do anything for money and I was like
I don't know. I always want to believe in the best in most people. I'm like, well, okay, I'm sure there's people like that out there, but not everybody. And of course it's not everybody. But then I got a job working for this really big producer. His name was Harry Offland. He did Last Temptation of Christ, Snow Falling on Cedars. And that was like an ongoing thing of having to...
Send scripts back to people who sent them unsolicited they had to be stamped a certain way that said Unopened unread and like to pay the money to send it back because other there had to be a paper trail to show you didn't get it and it's just i don't know the fact that the casios of all people who were like again like his second family in life once he was gone they were like
fuck it everyone knows he he was here let's just say he recorded an album while he was here we'll get this guy to sing it and we'll just but then for the estate to not do their due diligence well maybe they did maybe they didn't But to pass it off to consumers to spend money all over the world buying this stuff, and it wasn't even real. But now things are different.
After these last four years, especially COVID and stuff, the term misinformation is a thing or I'm doing my own research. That's the thing at any point.
after the estate told you no we had a meeting everybody said it's him it's good please stop being negative about this did you ever doubt yourself thinking am i crazy am i that that crazy fan now who just won't accept it of course so it wasn't initial like in i think for about the first two years i was just a raging bull who would not even consider that i was wrong because i knew deep down that i wasn't wrong um but from about 2012 onwards once every year or six months
I would go back and re-listen to the Casio tracks just to make sure that they actually weren't him. Like, okay, I'm going to go back with a clean slate. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I was wrong the whole time. And I'm just going to listen to them again. maybe it's Michael and I would hit play. And within like two seconds, I'd be like, it's Jason. And I would do that repeatedly just to.
just to check in and say, okay, it's been two years now. It's been three years now. It's been 10 years now. I'm going to listen to it again just to make sure. But at the same time, it's like checking in with myself to make sure I'm not crazy and that it doesn't sound different today than it did 10 years ago.
The evidence that I was collecting, investigating it, was continuing to stack against the authenticity. It was continuing to prove that these vocals were fake, that Michael Jackson had... very little to nothing to do with these songs at all during his life and you know the balance i mean i i knew it wasn't him when i first heard it but
The need to continue to check in with myself and listen to it and say, am I crazy? Eventually it went away, right? But I did. I did want to make sure that I'm not just like stuck in my own. you know, stubborn ways of saying, well, I initially thought it wasn't him. And so I'm just never going to change my mind. I'm just going to always say that it's not him because that's what I said when I first heard it. And I was really trying to make sure that I need to look at it again.
I need to reanalyze. I need to take away my biases. Nothing changed. I mean, it's the same audio, no matter which way you spin it. It's the same audio. And I had the same reaction every time I heard it, but I did try to check in with myself. And I can relate in a small way in that for long time listeners of this podcast who remember.
Episode 313. It was from May 2019. It was our Todd Jackson episode. I think it was like, wasn't it like three, over three hours, three and a half hours? Oh, it was a long one, yeah. But I had a nervous breakdown. when Leaving Neverland came out because I believed it. And as a longtime defender of Michael Jackson, I couldn't spend four hours looking at two dudes in a medium close up and not want to believe them.
And I just was like, fuck, I was on the wrong side of this the whole time. I was wrong. Oh my God. Like, and then it was like the next day, I think when I'm like, wait, why do I know the name Wade Robson? And then I started looking and then it was a six month nervous breakdown of reading every court transcript. And because like I had to know.
The truth and I couldn't just accept what I was hearing and And you can't expect everyone in the world to do that they if they hear something enough they start believing it's true and anyway, but but I know that feeling of every now and then I'd be like, cause that's the type of thing for me. Some people are like, Oh, I could separate the artists from.
the art. I can't when it comes to that. If I thought for a second that Michael Jackson had done any of those horrible things, that would be it for me. I'd be out. I would get rid of my whole collection. I'd be done. I just, not that. And I, but I would find myself every now and then going back and like watching leaving Neverland again and being like, is it no, I'm, I know what I'm talking about. Right. And like, it's so.
You need to be sure because it's such a serious issue. That particular issue is so serious. I mean, if you compare that to fake songs, obviously. child sex abuse is an infinitely more serious thing. And, you know, as much as this is the greatest art forgery in the history of music and perhaps the greatest art fraud of the 21st century of any medium.
No matter how great the art for it is, it's not as serious as those other things. So you have to feel comfortable and be sure that you've really exhausted. understanding as much as you can about those things. Because I agree with you, you can't separate the art from the artist. And with Michael Jackson specifically, his art, he is literally woven into the tapestry of his art. His art comes from his soul.
He's not just like this manufactured pop artist that kind of goes in the studio and sings other people's songs and they're, you know, they have no meaning to him. These things come from him. So he is literally his art. And so if he has done these things, then you can't separate. I mean, if I felt that he had done these things, I'd be immediately stopping listening. Immediately. I'll be immediately stopping public advocacy.
for him i wouldn't have pursued the faking michael story that's for sure if i believed those other things because who cares if some people made fake songs on a you know a terrible person you know I didn't even think of that. Good for them. Take your shot. Yeah, I just think like you have to be sure. I didn't think of that. Until right now. I'm sorry, the fact that you started this journey in 2010 and then Leaving Neverland comes out, it was like Sundance 2019, right? Yes.
If I'm remembering correctly. Yeah. Do I want to continue with this? Yeah. What a crossroads. Oh my God. Here I am just as a fan. And then we also went through it because. after i'd gone through all of that research and stuff and i like the fbi file like all of it and i'm like i know what i'm talking about and i it was killing me because you know the famous saying like
If you see an injustice, speak up. You don't just stay silent. I'm watching online Taj take all of these slings and arrows, and I'm like, I got to step into this fight now. And I remember saying to Joe, I'm like, look, you don't need to fall on the sword with me because I know we're going to get shit for standing up right now, especially in our industry at that time.
that was like such a faux pas well you were so passionate about it and you had to ask me like is it okay if we go down this rabbit hole and obviously i didn't read as copiously as you did but i unfortunately had to listen to my reactions to all of it for six months i clearly believed you and
Obviously, you had the conviction very much the way that a lot of people who were defending him, it wasn't maniacal. It was well-informed. It wasn't just like shaking your fist in the air going like, justice for Michael. You went through... a lot of research to do it so it's like how could I not and when you had you know like when we ended up having Taj on and the further and further we like I went down the rabbit hole vicariously through you and I hope other listeners as well gave gave just
gave it another shot. To this day, what, two people that came after us with nasty comments? And they didn't listen to it. They just saw what the episode was. So kudos to our audience that they did listen. It's worth noting as well. I was going to say, it's worth noting as well that Taj, being the one who was out there taking all the arrows on the Leaving Neverland thing, he was one of three people who was out there taking the arrows.
on the fake Michael Jackson song things in 2010. So his track record of standing up and being on the right side of history is pretty good. It was Taj and his brothers, TJ and Taryl, who were really the engineers of speaking out against the fake. Michael Jackson songs. They were really the ones leading the charge publicly and taking all the hits from the media. The media slandered the heck out of them for doing that. And they were right the whole time. They were 100% right.
as proven in the podcast, but like they were right and they knew it and they were on the right side of history. So it was Taj back then and it was Taj again in 2019 and kudos to him. To hear the rest of this episode, go to patreon.com slash themoviecrypt. For only $1 a month, you'll get every new episode, every Monday, downloaded right to your podcast app of choice.