Lionel Richie

It started out as a group called the Mystics.

And we were the talent show group.

We didn't realize that we were the joke of the seniors, of the juniors.

But they have a freshman talent show every year, and we wanted to be the band to be the freshman talent show.

We came out on stage and killed it.

And it was a guy, another group there called the Jays, which was the seniors.

They had been there for the last four years, and they were the biggest group on campus.

They were about to break up.

And a guy named Michael Gilbert gave us a phone call and said...

I want to put a group together, and I was looking at you four guys.

Would you like to come and join this band over here?

The answer is, that was the beginning of the Commodores.

19 years old.

Wow.

Thank you very much.

19 years old and we're going to take over the world.

Joe, you know what I mean?

In other words, you know, there's James Brown, there's Marvin, and there's the Commodores.

You know how that works, you know?

And what I love about that period of time, we could be, you know, all right, all wrong, but we were all together.