| Bush, Kate - Just Saying It |
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| Notes |
| Kate Bush Just Saying It.. (1986 Trademark of Discussion Records UK #CLOUD BUS 10) Interview 1985/6 Two interviews from Hounds of Love era Side A 15:11 + Side B 8:21 (First interview) Side B 8:22 - 15:46 (Second Interview) Unknown transfer > FLAC Info related to CD boot abcd012 which has same material. from http://gaffa.org/reaching/im85_pd2.html the following interview appears on a picdisc cd. it has no title or information about the interviewer (well, interviewers. it turns out there are really two interviews cleverly strung together), other than saying that the disc is part of the 'conversation disc series.' it was made in england and has the catalog number abcd 012 and on the back it claims to be a 'limited edition full length interview of no less than 40 minutes not available in any other format.' i'm not sure about the limited edition (supposedly of 2500) or the availability, but i do know that it is just shy of 33 minutes long. also, as i mentioned, there are actually *two* interviews on this disc, both of which are from the hounds of love period (neither are the recently posted cbak 4011 austrailian interview). the picture on the disc is a rather nice shot of KaTe at about the time of hounds of love. she looks particularly smashing in a white blouse with the collar up, earrings that look suspiciously like silver crabs and a big smile on her face. apologies if these interviews have already been transcribed, but as there were no respones to my query earlier, i'm assuming that these are either newly available or just forgotten. ums and uhs have been edited out... int: many congratulations on the success of the album hounds of love and of course the singles which have also been very successful. how are you coping with the success this time around - are you finding it alot easier than the 'wuthering heights' days? kt: yes and no, i mean it's easier cos it's something i've experienced before, so i don't have the trauma of going into things that are totally unknown, but on the other hand it think it's just as hard coming out of such an intense working period which is very private now, ie working in the studio on an album, where maybe, we're uhh, in the studio constantly for a year, say, and then i come out into the whole world of promotion. and it can be just a bit scary i think, it's a bit daunting coming form such a private existance to such a public one. int: is how you cope with the press, because i know you've talked about them in the past and haven't been too happy with the whole situation of promotion. kt: i don't, um, i don't really enjoy promoting. it's something that i do for my work. i feel that, obviously that when you spend a lot of time working on something, it's only right that you come out and let people know that the album's there. i don't feel that ever, hopefully, i'm not promoting myself, but the work. i'm being the saleswoman for the record or the video or whatever it is at the time. int: cos the press finds it very difficult, i mean, to dig up juicy news items on you and they're trying hard all the time. i mean there was a rumor that one of the reasons why you've been away from the scene for quite a long time is that you've risen to eighteen stone! kt: yes... int: ridiculous, isn't it? how do they come up with these things? kt: i think when you don't give people anything they make things up. i think it's very flattering on lots of levels, the fact that people are still concerned about writing about me, the fact that they still remember me and are hanging on to me. it's very flattering. int: has it surprised you that you've had this instant success once again? were you at all worried that people might have forgotten about kate bush? kt: i think what you worry about is that people don't like what you've worked on hard. i mean, again, i don't feel it's me that people are responding to directly, it's myself through the expression of music and the work. and i can't tell you how rewarding it is that people do recieve this so warmly. int: now you came away from school with tenner levels, so does that mean you were a very attentative pupil? kt: um, i think i've just found the whole system of school something that didn't really appeal to me - i couldn't really express myself in that whole system. int: so, presumably, you're favorite lesson was music? kt: i did enjoy music and english, but, i just didn't really enjoy school as i got older. int: why was that? kt: it's very hard to say, um, i just... int: it's very restrictive, wasn't it? kt: yes, i think i did find it restrictive. int: right, so you couldn't get away quick enough? kt: well, at that point in my life, i really did want to leave school. int: dave gilmour of pink floyd fame gave you your big break. how did that come about? kt: well, i'd been writing, i suppose, since i was about thirteen, seriously. it was my family and my brother john who felt it would be a good idea to see if we could get some of my songs published. and through a friend of the family, we made a contact with dave gilmour, who at that time was scouting for talent to, perhaps, produce or encourage. he came down and heard some songs and i think was impressed. and basically, eventually, he put up the money for me to go into the studio and make three tracks properly produced and through those tracks i got the recording contract. int: right. now you mentioned your family. did you, have you always had a lot of support from them from a very early age? kt: yes. int: was it encouraged the music? kt: yes. i think so. int: cos your dad taught you piano, didn't he? kt: he didn't teach me piano, but he was definitely the encouraging force, when i was writing at that time. and whenever i'd written a song, i'd always go and ask him to come and listen to it. and he was brilliant, totally encouraging, and in the right way in that he wasn't pushing me into it, which i think, especially for children, is the wrong thing to do, cos they rebel against that automatically. int: something which you did in school at the time? kt: i don't know if i was rebellious, but there were certain things i didn't enjoy being taught. int: and what's the kt bush band? kt: it was a three piece that consisted of del palmer on bass, brian bath on guitar, and vic smith who was our drummer. int: and where did you tour? around london? kt: yes, we did clubs and pubs in the london area. but this, i mean, was three months? no, longer than that... int: so how did you feel about doing that at the time, cos obviously it was the first time you actually played an audience. kt: i really enjoyed it. it was just the experience i wanted at that point. i was looking for things that would take me further into where i wanted to go, which was the music business and i'd been training as a dancer and this felt like the perfect stage, really, to go into a live situation. int: looking back on your debut album, the kick inside, how do you listen...do you often listen to it now? do you still put it on the turntable at home? kt: no, i haven't heard it for years. int: why's that? kt: um, it's old! (spoken the way KaTe said 'shut up!' on the vh-1 special) int: but how do you look on that album now, as a sort of very experimental? kt: i think it was probably the least experimental of all the albums. i'd written, say, two hundred songs from which we chose the thirteen songs that went on that. and it was recorded very quickly, there was very little time for experimentation. it was something that had a lot of forethought gone into it. int: of course you had the big number one single 'wuthering heights.' to people who aren't devout fans of kate bush, you mention your name and immmediately they say, 'oh wuthering heights,' even nowadays. does that bother you at all? kt: no, i don't think it would be right of me to be rude to a song that has done so much for me. int: how did you feel when it went straight to number one. you must have been very take a back. kt: yes, very surprised. int: and it was sort of always **** i suppose. i mean, it must have encouraged you, obviously, to do a lot more. did you immediately set to work on the next album? kt: it was very difficult, that whole stage because being so new to the whole business and starting with such a successful song, it meant, really, the next year of my life was nothing but promotion. and i think it was quite early on, during that time, that i decided that promotion was something that had to come secondary to the music or i was going to spend my whole life promoting and never ever making another album. so, it was a very busy period for me then. int: what are your main song writing influences? obviously quite a difficult one cos you must have many. kt: well, yes, that is a very difficult question. subject matter is, it stems from people. either through their expressions in films, books, things that people tell you about, things you witness. musically, i think that's a much more obscure area. i mean in a way, it's the music that often will suggest the subject matter, so the music is quite often the thing that sparks it all off. and that comes from the air, really. int: did you ever feel that you may have missed out on other aspects of life that other teenagers may have enjoyed, cos of you rather isolated life. you spent a lot of time in the recording studio and promoting the next album. did you miss out on a varied social life, for instance? kt: no, i think in many ways, it made me meet more people in a way i wanted to, more that ever would be possible if i hadn't gone into the business. and it's isolated in that you meet certain types of people at the time. but, it's continually challenging and i think, probably, i have met more people and had much more experience through what i'm doing now than if i hadn't. there are no regrets. int: have you ever felt that you were pushed into adult life too quickly? kt: no. i think that's something that happens to kids now, uh, much sooner than it did for me. i think it's something that is generally happening sooner all the time. kids just grow up quicker now. int: you never had any worries about getting a job, did you? kt: yes, i did. i think when you leave school and you don't know what you're going to do, um, i was very much throwing myself to fate. if it hadn't worked, i would have been in a very difficult situation. and, i just worked very hard and hoped that i'd be able to make something of it and i was very lucky. int: did you ever consider an alternative career? kt: i considered it, but it was never anything serious. and that's why i felt i had to leave school and just go for it, cos if i didn't make an attempt to throw myself into that lifestyle, i didn't feel it was something that was going to come to me. it's something you have to go out and get. int: was that partly influenced by your upbringing, by your parents? kt: i don't know what it was influenced by. i think it was the very strong desire in me that had started when i first started writing at the piano that this was what i wanted to do. i didn't want to go to university. i didn't want to be in a job where i couldn't be creative. int: but how did other people react to that? they must have been a bit taken a back. kt: you mean my family? int: yeah, your family, in particular. kt: yes, i thionk obviously, my parents were very concerned. i was leaving school going into something that was completely insecure and i think really they had a tremendous amount of faith in me, in that they wanted me to be happy. and they understood that i wasn't just spending my time doing nothing. i was very seriously working on a career that could be insecure, but they had a great deal of faith in me. int: looking back, do you have favorite album? kt: i think the last album you do is quite often you favorite one becasue that's the one you put the most energy into recently. but, i think the fourth album had some very precious moments for me, so i'll say that one for now. int: the dreaming ? kt: yes. int: a lot of people would have said that album was rather abstract and, possibly, a bit obscure. and it didn't sell in the quantities that other had done. did that influence you on your new album? kt: very difficult to say. i don't know what influences you between one and the other, except your life, really. you change with the environment and my environment did change between the last album and this one: i moved out of the city and into the country. and i think those two energies are very apparent on both albums. the fourth album is very much an oppressed city atmosphere album and this one just released is very much a freer elemental album. int: did you feel a real need to get out to the country then? kt: i was getting fed up with being in london, yeah. i don't know about a real need, but i think it's a very good thing for me. i'm glad i did. it certainly helped me relax as a person. int: did it drain your creative energies, then, being in the town? kt: no, i don't think you can say that it drains your creative energies, because if anything, and i'm sure a lot of people would agree with me, the sense of oppression and energy that you can get from cities can be very, very productive to writing songs. but, i found i was getting too many distractions that was stopping me have the time to concentrate on my writing. so rather than being productive, it was getting in the way. int: do you now commune with nature? kt: (laughs) i don't know about 'commune with nature,' but certainly when i look out my window and there's trees and fields i feel a lot happier than concrete blocks out there. int: when you see the trees and the fields, do you see a song as well? kt: um...no. no, i think it's not quite as basic as that. there's no doubt that when you're writing and you look out the window and there is that force out there, that it does effect you very differently than if it was a city or by the sea. definitely, your environments do affect you, much more than we think. int: and of course, your working environments too. you've just designed and built your own studio. how are you finding that, working in your own studio? kt: it's superb. there really couldn't have been better decisions made in this time between the last album and this where i've moved and we've moved the studio to where we are. there are so many areas where it's helped. again, i feel much more relaxed, much freer to work in an uninhibited way. i do get quite nervous if you've got people you don't know coming in listening. in the london studio, people always coming in borrowing pieces of equipment, the phone's always ringing and it's costing you a phenomenal amount of money every hour. so, you do feel guilty if you experiment, becasue you feel you're just throwing money away. at home, obviously, there aren't those pressures at all. int: cos you've got quite a reputation as a slow worker. kt: yes. int: why do you feel that need to take everything so slowly? kt: i don't think i feel a need to take things slowly at all. in fact, it's very, very frustrating for me that things take as long as they do. it's never planned. it's just something that takes over once you get into the studio. and the songs are there. they really do create their own life force and they take over you and they just drag me behind them till they're finished. and, uh, it's strange, cos quite often i wouldn't really want to go in and work on the album - i was tired. but, you just sort of go in there, it drags you behind it. int: have you ever had pressure from a record company to get on with it? kt: i don't have that relationship with the record company. i make an album and i present it to them and i think if they're happy with the album then our relationship is successful. int: you, of course, had the big hit single 'running up that hill' taken from the hounds of love album. what inspired that song? kt: that was the first song i wrote when we moved to the country. i think it was, perhaps, an expression of freedom from the things i'd felt before. it's very much about love and the power of love. and the frustration of misunderstanding within relationships. if a man could become a woman and the woman a man, within their relationship, that perhaps they'd understand a bit more about each other. int: and that's the deal with god? kt: yes. int: there's some very complicated dance routines in the video. must have taken a long time to work those out? kt: that was a lot of fun. i was working there with diane grey, a choreographer, who i met a couple of years ago. it's very exciting working with other people. i think it's especially so when you spend such a lot of time, say, in the studio where you're only working with a set group, say two other people. and it was very inspiring working with the, uh, choreographer, who's also such a good dancer and we got on well together. we had lots of fun. int: side two of the hounds of love album is a concept piece called 'the ninth wave.' will you tell us a little bit about that? kt: it's about someone who is in the water for the night. alone in the water. and it's really about their past, present and future coming to keep them awake to stop them drowning, to stop them going to sleep until the morning comes. int: it isn't immediately obvious, is it, if you listen to the album? kt: no, i don't think so. i don't know if that's relevant or important though. i think the most important thing is that people that listen to it get something out of it, that they enjoy it. int: alright. now, you seem to have a fascination with water. i noticed that a couple of your favorite movies, don't look now and cruel sea, which are very much on a watery theme. so have you a fascination for water? kt: yes, yes i do. i think that everyone does really. i think that cruel sea was one film that i particularly mentioned though as being a very influential force for this side. so, it would have to do something with water. (chuckles) int: and also, there's the tennyson poem, isn't it? 'the coming of arthur'? kt: i think, um, a lot of people tend to presume that the whole side was written from that quote and, in fact, that it was completely the other way around, where, i just needed a title for the whole piece and there was nthing within any of the songs, any of tht titles that was right for it. so i juist started looking through some books to try and find a title and found that quote, which seemed to be saying, more or less, wehat i wanted to say, so it was used to express the title. int: and you want to turn the piece into a video? kt: yes, it's just an idea. i would very much like to turn it into film. i mean for me now, film and video are two very separate visual things. but uh... int: for cinema release? kt: yes, ideally. but, it's just something you can talk about at this point. i mean really, not until early next year, i wouldn't have time to start checking out the feasibility, but it is something i would like to do, but whether it will happen of not, we'll see. int: alright, you mentioned drowning. have you a phobia of drowning and death? i mean, does it worry you in particular, or is it something you just take in stride? kt: i don't think i have a phobia of water at all. i think it is something we should all be certainly scared of, be respectful of it. but i don't think i have a phobia of water. and death i think is something anyone who writes would certainly deal with death at some point. i rather like woody allen's quote about he doesn't mind dying, but he doesn't want to be there when it happens. (laughing) int: (laughs) yes. have you any religious beliefs? kt: no. not, not ones that i could name. i mean, i do believe in certain... i suppose, cause and effect is something that i would believe in a bit, but whether they're religious beliefs, i don't know. int: 'cause and effect' - explain that. kt: well, i think if you behave i a certain way, then that energy will come back to you. the boomerang syndrome. int: so the more positive one is in their thoughts and actions, the more positive life they will lead? and vice versa? kt: ah, yes, i would...i think there is a lot in that. i think there's also a lot in that if you are positive and can be, even if things around you aren't necessarily coming back, at least you cope with them better. int: so you think there's this sort of powerful force behind it all? kt: yes, i think it's actually a survival technique, a self-preservation where if you can always keep coming back, keep coming up again, not staying down there, then you're going to get a lot more done, you're going to be a lot more in control of what's happening than if you're depressed, unhappy. int: you mentioned earlier that one of your favorite movies was don't look now, which stars donald sutherland. is that the reason you picked him for your new video? kt: i don't know if it's the reason. i mean don't look now is a totally brilliant film and everyone in it was wonderful. but, this was a very different piece. and it was quite coincidental, i suppose, that we thought of donald. and i think at that time the only references to don't look now that there couldn't have been anyone better and we were so lucky becasue he was our first choice. and through a friend we managed to find a way of contacting him. and um, it was quite incredible really to think that he did it. i still find it hard to believe. int: he's been quite a fan of your for years, hasn't he? kt: um. well, if he was, i certainly didn't know that. i don't, i don't think so. int: alright. one of those pressure quotes again . tell us a bit about the song then, 'cloudbusting'. kt: very much inspired by a book, which i found, must be nine years ago now, on a bookshelf. i just picked it off the shelf and read it. it's quite an extrordinary book. it's very sad and moving. and it's written by the man, his name is peter reich, about when he was a child, it was the relationship between himself as a child and his father. and it's written very much through the eyes of the child. so it has an incredible sense of innocence and intimacy between him and this great big man who's his father and meant everything to him. peter reich's father was a very respected psychoanalyst who did a lot of of work. and one thing that's mentioned in the book, that's quite aside from his theoretical work was that he had a machine that could make it rain. and the two of them would go out together and make it rain. this was really where the video came in, to explain all this. it really is an extrordinary book and everyone that i gave it to to read said it was the saddest book they ever read. int: there are many people credited on the latest album, hounds of love, and the credits include terry gilliams of monty python fame. why did you give him a mention? kt: terry's been a great help in pointing me towards people i could use for the videos. i'm a great fan of terry, i think he's a brilliant director - i love his films. i think he's more talented than people have appreicated yet. he's a really great filmmaker and i think a serious one too. and i just managed to be lucky enough to have made contact with him and he's helped me find people that i could work with on these last two videos. int: so you're quite a fan of slapstick and that type of thing? kt: no, i'm not a fan of flaps (gets tongue-tied) slapstick! but of doing things unusually and brilliantly. i mean i think his sense of composition, his sense of photographing things is superb, is brilliant. int: enjoy 'faulty towers?' kt: wonderful! i don't think there is anyone who doesn't really. is there? have you met anyone who doesn't like it? int: no - i love it personally. now you've had a great deal of success in a relatively short time kt: not at all, i think. trouble is it takes me so long to do things that i've sorta brought up a backlog of not being able to do the things i want. so, um, it's, it's enjoyable for me to get the album finished and when this promotional work is finished, thst means i can launch into the next project. i think i'd alwasy like to be able to make albums, that's something that is very iportant to me, making music. and apart from that, i think it's experimentation from now on really. int: do you ever see a day when you might retire? kt: no, not yet (laughs). int: not for a few years yet? (chuckling) kt: well i hope so - don't write me off yet! int: do you see yourself in a little cottage on the countryside eventually? kt: yes, i'd like to be in a little cottage in the countryside now, i think! i don't think you have to retire to do that. just makes travelling into london a bit longer. int: have any plans for a family? kt: no, again, not yet. my work takes up all my time. int: is that altogether a healthy thing, you think? kt: i don't know if it's healthy. but, it's certainly very enjoyable. i get a tremendous amount of satisfaction out of actually feeling that i've achieved something. like finishing an album. or finishing a video. because it's always so hard when you're stuck in the middle of a project and sometimes you're neversure if you're going to be able to finish it, so to actually reach that point, that relief when the thing is over, it's incredibly rewarding! int: particularly when it's a big success. kt: (laughingly) yes, particularly. int: thanks kate. |