Kate Bush - Archive Interviews talking about Lps, Lyrics,Touring & more - Radio Broadcast 07/02/2023
thank you [Music] running up that hill from hounds of Love Now the new cable shop them or one side of the album I should say it's really cool that three years Kate it seems a very long time what have you been doing yeah so I think this is the one question that is inevitable really isn't it um well after the last album I had to take a a break in order to create a new energy for this album um if I'd have started writing straight away without getting new stimulus it would have been exactly the same energy that was on the last album and I wanted to go for a very different kind of music um more positive I think and also I wanted to be brave enough to go ahead with the idea of a second side of the album actually being a form of concept which took a bit of time to actually get up the courage to do and it must obviously take a long time to write I think we'll talk about that in detail when we when we play some tracks but I mean everyone's got a you Greta Garber and Lord Lucan and people like this aren't they to disappear for three years you know it must have been quite a difficult decision to take that long over it really well I think the best decisions that I've made have happened in the nasty is I moved out of London I spent some time at home which I needed to do um got in some new stimulus found a new dance teacher and most importantly built and equipped our own recording studio which we then recorded all the material in so does that mean then that you you've got the freedom and the time to really experiment absolutely one of the worst things about working in commercial Studios is besides the distractions about Outsiders and phones all the time is that it's costing a phenomenal amount of money every hour and if you want to experiment with things that take maybe a day and you want to go away and think about them it's just prohibitive you can't work that way but now you see one of the reasons that people must think that you disappeared was that the last album didn't go down terribly well with a lot of people who did it I mean is that disappointing and depressing well no it's not actually I mean I what I find strange is that the particularly the media approach to the record was that it was not successful but for me I thought it was incredibly successful and it it made the um top three in this country straight away and I think the problem was that the singles didn't do well um but the one single that did do well off the album was timed a year before the release of the album so perhaps it wasn't timed very well but I was really pleased with that album and I think the feedback that I've been getting as people gradually get into it is wonderful I'm very pleased and what I wanted to do is get rid of the problems I'd had on the last album I.E demos that I then had to totally recreate from scratching the master Studio which I can do properly here where I come in and actually write the tracks in the studio well we've talked about that they're being two distinct sides to the album and the hounds of loved one which is like individual songs as such um they all seem to be interested in a particular round you know you're going into to the way relationships work and is this a preoccupation in terms of your lyrics do you think um I think it's to do with my life that relationships are incredibly important as I think they are in everyone's life I think really well the vast majority of pieces of work that are written about how to do with relationships between people because that's what it's all about really isn't it the feedback and the interlinking and the not working of people together it's a fascinating thing and funnily enough of course it goes back to Wuthering Heights doesn't it really I mean that sort of um you know that sort of almost destructive relationship the destructive attraction has it always been an interest in a lyrical interest for you um yes I think so and again it's it's a lyrical interest because it does interest me the way that um people can tear each other apart and yet they love each other and I think it's an irony I think it's the irony of situations that are fascinating I don't want to to to to press you and talk in personal terms but clearly that it has a personal reference as well doesn't it I mean a personal relevance I suppose any lyric that you write um I think so and as much as it's expressing how I feel at that time but then it's not necessarily autobiographical which is something that does tend to be pushed on writers as soon as they sing a lyric from a personal point of view where they sing I do this I think this um it's not necessarily autobiographical but it is expressing something that you feel at that time perhaps about someone else rather than yourself your records also sometimes they quite scare me you know well that's great if they scare you because I think definitely some tracks um that they're meant to be scary and it's always very difficult for me to know how people do interpret the stuff at the other end um so if you're getting scared by some of it if it's the right tracks you know I'm really pleased I think what definitely inspires me is um is films that I watch that I find really scary and there are a lot of people who do enjoy being scared by films but I think what I like is the um the intensity of films when they start scaring you when they're good night for instance don't look now it's just such an incredible experience and when I I write things so ideally would love to be doing to people what happens to me when I'm affected by these things um so I think that's definitely the inspiration there we also talk about the other side now really didn't we The Concept side it must have been a bit worrying a bit daunting really just to just to approach the idea of a whole side of an album about one subject because I mean you know everyone everyone says that sort of thing went out in the 70s don't they I mean it seems an old-fashioned idea yes which was in a way why I felt I had to think very carefully before I went for it because of all the preconceptions that are very negative about such a thing but I feel that's so wrong because if anything music is so much more akin to that kind of thing than being short stories like pop music is I mean classical music Opera they all explore extensions of Music they get you involved again more like films than short stories and I think when it works it's even more effective active than a short piece of work so what's the story of the ninth wave about someone who is in the water and it's about the past present and future coming to wake them up to keep them awake they're very tired and they just have to keep going till morning and in many ways it's about someone going through an experience and coming out the other end hopefully Having learned an awful lot about themselves during the process but is this person drowning or what they're trying not to drown they're trying to stay awake until someone comes to save them talk us through because I mean there's something like uh I don't know how many tracks now and what five or six tracks that to get up to make the one the one piece waking the witch what's actually happening at this point at this point they've just been woken up by friends who've come to stop them drowning as they go under the water and as they surface they see someone in the distance who comes close and as they do it's a witch finder and it's the whole thing of having just saved themselves from drowning there's now this Apparition that is trying to drown them again um in this sort of parallel story of a witchfinder trying to drown the witch whether she's innocent or guilty she will die and the water is the linking fountain [Music] it seems to be based on Tennyson I mean there's some words anyway on the on the sleeve from Tennyson yes that was really something that came after the concept in that I felt it was always nice to have a passage that was used to to quote a situation that came from a poet I've always liked that again when I've read books or whatever and there's a little passage at the front that sort of sums it up and the quote that we chose was from the coming of Arthur and it's really Tennyson talking about how he feels that waves work in a series of nine and so there's a big build up and a complete cycle within nine waves which seemed rather nicely relevant to what we were doing here it is it's very demanding I think uh a very demanding piece I mean lyrically especially by which I mean I'm not absolutely certain about what goes on but I think that's probably a good thing isn't it yes I would very much like the idea of people listening to the album again and again and as they hear it more they go deeper into it um but what's nice is the feedback I've had so far people are so aware of what's happening in there um it's very pleasing because again you're never sure if it's a bit too obscure for people to grasp but especially say two three listens but so many people really have understood what's happening in there is that a compromise that you feel yourself having to make all the time it's something that's satisfying to you still has to be direct enough to get through to people fairly quickly at least um no no I think I always tend to just write something um hoping that I've done the best for that particular song or whatever it is and then just hope that people understand and like it I don't think you can compromise because you're not sure because they could well be where you are in your head so you I think you have to play to that people seem to come to music from two ways they either want to go up on stage and do it or they want to sit in the studio and write and create that way yes I get incredible enjoyment out of both and they're two totally different worlds which is again why I enjoy both because they are so different from each other there's the spontaneity of a tour which you just can't beat being up on the stage and if something goes wrong you just got to cope with it and everyone's out there with you hopefully it's wonderful and the studios so rewarding because you can spend as much time hopefully creating the best thing you can for that song which is so important but you don't have a dumb one too didn't you like it the first time I loved it I really loved it and I learned such a lot from it that was very important for the things that have come since but my projects become so involved once I'm in them that there's just been no time to do one since that last two I needed another two albums worth of material which left me at the end of the last album and it just didn't feel the right time to tour so here I am at the end of this album and if anything I feel a very strong urge to try and get some visual projects happening before another tour um but it's not that I don't want to it's just really finding the time in the moment are you going to do it again though well I have been saying for the last six years it must be now that I would love to and uh I would love to and we hope to see what happens when you put so much effort into that one too and people are still talking about I remember seeing it on TV I think is where it was on there wasn't it yeah I mean are you gonna have to do all that again are you gonna have the same approach to the tours you seem to have the album you know that's that's again the thing that where you enter a project and you know you think you're walking into a quite a small room like the Tardis but when you get in there it's enormous and I think that's a bit like nearly everything I do um and that that's again why doing a tour requires so much thought because it is a time consuming process but I'd love to and I think actually it could be much better than the last tour because some of the material lends itself very well to theatrical visuals it's the Simon Mayo record of the week well we normally do this chat on a Monday but uh it matters not because uh Tuesday second play for the record of the week and I'm really excited about this because about I would say gosh I've forgotten that 19 well anyway about 10 or 12 years ago I was listening to the radio and this record came on and it went whiny he said it was an awful lot more impressive than that and I thought this has got to be the record of the decade I was so excited I dashed out and bought it and bought everything that the lady's done since that was of course a terrible version of Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush and Kate's on the line okay hello Simon what did you think of that little rendition of Wuthering Heights uh you had the wrong key actually was it what key should it have been a major a major just a flat I'm just a totally flat absolutely right anyway Kate good morning good morning and uh thanks for having a chat with us brand new single This Woman's Work from the album What's the inspiration behind that where does the song come from well I was asked to write this song by John Hughes the American film director who just finished making a film of his chord she's having a baby and um he had lots of material for the the film generally which is quite a light-hearted film apart from one sequence where the film gets very heavy and um he's actually waiting for his wife in hospital whose baby is in a breach position and um all through the secrets in the film really he's having to sit there with himself and his memories and he's obviously in a lot of distress and um the song is very much from his point of view and exploring the sorrow that one feels when you're waiting for someone you care very much about and um that's what the song's saying they're actually there are very few songs about pregnancy we played the 10 000 Maniac single the other day which is called eat for two and when you were talking about that I just remember the kick inside and um from the tracks from your first album is it something that you consciously try to write about is it just like a recurring theme well I think probably for all writers Simon there are key themes in birth life and death are for all of us three major events you know they're what life is all about and I think birth is obviously a very symbolic thing as well as a real physical thing and um it was a real honor for me really to be asked to write this song for this piece of film I'm not sure I would have written something like it otherwise yeah I know what you're saying well I think it works wonderfully we'll play it in just a second um I heard I think actually it might have been in the end one of the last interviews that Roger Scott ever did for the Saturday sequence when he was having a chat with you about your your album and uh he asked you the question which I know I know you know I'm going to ask this and everyone else does and as he asked it I went through a tunnel and I missed the answer so I'll ask you now on behalf of all the people who know us about to speak to you said you must ask her when is she going to play live we demand that we see Kate singing live so I'm just asking on behalf of them and I think we're going through another Tunnel right here I can't hear you very clearly okay well I'll I'll fax the message through you're not getting off the hook with this I are you going to play Live Kate please the thing is Simon I haven't toured for such a long time and as as I think I said to Roger yeah I'm astounded at how I've got away with what I do really the fact that I'm not seen in public so much and it takes me such a long time to make albums I would love to tour again but I've been so wrapped up in making albums it just hasn't happened and um believe me if if I do decide to everyone will know immediately so you're still thinking about it it means a tremendous amount to me that people still would like to see me live but it's a combination of fear and and commitment and touring is something you really have to want to do and I guess I just haven't hit that point okay well when you do there'll be a whole Army of people waiting to see you oh thank you so much and uh thank you gosh I could carry on chatting like this for a while uh but I better not we'll play the record this is the record of the week this week Kate Bush and This Woman's Work Kate thank you very much thank you Simon foreign [Music] first album since 1993. does it feel like a long time to you yes why is it taking so long well I suppose when I finished the last record I really didn't want to go straight back in and make another one it was I thought I'd take a year out because which takes us to 1994. yeah it's been a long year after about a year I decided that it was just something I wanted to kind of stay with a bit longer especially since I was about 17 or 18. I'd gone and made a record promoted it and then gone
straight back in to do the next one and because they take such a long time there's the impression that there's these big gaps in between where I'm not doing anything but with a lot of those records I was actually working on them for a long time and it's quite an intense process and I think it got to the point at the end of the last one where I just thought I didn't want you know I didn't want to just go straight and then do another one I want to just take a break and do some other stuff why does it take so long well it's a very good question I asked myself that the actual writing is normally very quick yeah with a lot of them what I do is go in and just write straight onto tape right so that's the first time the song exists out side of your head is when you go in the studio yes so it's all just in there and it just all flows out in one take no no it just [Music] it's a bit different with piano vocal tracks that would be written at the piano as opposed to written onto tape and then once I've written it I've been just put it onto tape so that's a different process because that's the way I always used to write when I was a little girl really I just used to sit at the piano and write the songs and in a way it was like I was the tape machine I guess but once I started working in my own Studio I wanted to stop making demos because the problem was you'd make a demo and it would be really good but you couldn't use it because it wasn't you know technically different sounding right so you tried to reproduce it and it would never sound the same it wouldn't have the atmosphere or the buzz so I thought well let's not make demos let's just put it straight onto Master tape and that way even though you might redo elements of it you've always got that initial energy and atmosphere it's called Ariel there's a sea of honey and a sky of honey what's the concept that's driving it well one of the things I thought I did wrong with an Arts record was I think it was too long and what I was trying to do was give people as much for their money as possible but the last record I was making a CD as opposed to a vinyl record there's a problem isn't it I think a lot of my favorite albums there might be eight tracks on them and it's great you can turn it over and everything and there was this thing with CDs where people it takes 70 minutes therefore we should do 70 minutes and it's a mistake isn't it it can be a mistake I think it's very difficult because I think as an artist you want to give people their money's worth and in a lot of ways people with attention span doesn't really last that long what was so great about vinyl records was you had that forced Gap I suppose also I always really liked the process of making hounds of Love which was a similar idea except that was one side of a Race So in some ways this is a bit like a kind of larger version more of like a sort of Irish Wolfhounds of Love yeah yeah well I think a lot of people haven't got a clue what it's about and you like that though don't you yes I do I think it's brilliant and I think whatever I have in my head when I write here is important to me but I think it's very important how that works for people who then listen to it or see it or whatever art form it is because then they become a part of the process it's like when you read a book part of that process of reading that book is you as the reader you're you're you know as important as the book really I mean it couldn't actually exist as a book unless you were there reading it I think you become part of the process so how you interpret it and mishear lyrics and ideas is great so you don't want to say all this about because you think that that kind of negates that process for people then yeah I think so in a way I mean I thought it would be interesting to put this out as a first single because people might be intrigued by the lyrics because you know they're not terribly straightforward I don't think of myself as somebody's going to come up with writing a hit single so I thought that might just give it a bit of my knowledge you know that there would be a story there for people to try and discover you'd rather not have to talk about it at all yes I would but I want people to know that the record's out there and so I have to let people know that it's out there but you know I just get on with my life and so this for me is just a very small part of it and yet for people standing at the outside looking in this is the bit that they see and then they have this impression of me just retreating away you know into some sort of big Vampire Castle or something but simply it's it's mad because you know this is just a little bit where I I come and say hi you know the album's out please go buy it well you're always reluctant to be a celebrity right from the beginning but I don't think of myself as as a celebrity I don't think that to me that's a dirty word for me well I mean reluctant to be a pop star then or reluctant I know you don't you've laughed I mean now famous you can't argue is famous Infamous I would prefer celebrated cherished who cherished is lovely I can't find that and then I find it completely ridiculous this obsession with celebrities the important people are surgeons and doctors and people who actually put people back together and make a difference to people's lives not somebody who's in an ad on telly I mean okay so that's valid for what it is too but why so much attention on something that's so shallow some people seem to kind of want fame just for itself maybe there's nothing wrong that I can't understand I mean you find that kind of difficult because Fame which you undoubtedly attained is almost like The Unwanted byproduct of what it is that you do isn't it really has there ever been a time where you enjoyed the fame when you were younger did you enjoy being Kate Bush the pop star I noticed you laughed when you said pop star because you obviously don't see yourself as a pop star but you were a pop star I saw you on top of the pops doing the number one it's single so you must have been did you ever enjoy that I think still there are some times when it's fun and I think that's again that's important if you can to try and keep it fun because you know in a lot of ways it's quite ridiculous really what I desired was not to be famous and I think that's a difference I didn't want to be famous I wanted to make a record that was the big thing and I was on a mission from God and that's what I was going to do were you always nervous about that I mean at the beginning it must have felt as a young girl in the music must have felt great no it's about what being known being famous being bothered when you go out no I thought it was absolutely hilarious at first even at that age he was kind of you know yeah it was fun yeah and it was my first record was very successful yeah which was I think a big surprise to everybody really was it a surprise to you yeah it was I didn't expect you to do as well as it did I mean I hope she would do well but it was extraordinary success for a first record you'd worked quite a long time on that and you could just very big now and go through all the thing again I mean you were kind of signed to Emi for a long time and they let you alone to sort of find your feet a bit didn't they well that's what they say right so they were pressurizing you all the time no they weren't pressurize me it was quite the opposite I wanted to make a record and I think in a lot of ways what they did was they signed me because they could see that there was potential there then they just left me and I think there was an element of them not wanting somebody else to sign me I mean through the help of Dave Gilmore I had at least two of the tracks that were on the first album that was what was presented to the record company so man with a child in his eyes basically got me signed looking back on cables at that time and I used to present things I had a flashback to that not the nine o'clock news Pamela Stephenson what was it oh England my leotard or something do you remember that yes I do did you find that flattering maybe you found it insulting or maybe you thought no I've arrived because I'm being taken off on not the nine o'clock news which was the biggest TV show of that era well I was I was very flaccid because I mean she was very beautiful I think at the time I was very nervous because I was worried that people were just taking the piss out of me because I was having the piss taken out of me so much by everybody but I saw it a couple of years later and I thought it was brilliant it was really wonderful you were marketed in quite a sensual or sexual way weren't you at that I don't think that was marketed well the photographs that came out at that time were being a very sensual photographer weren't they very womanly photographed there's nothing wrong with that but there was that kind of did you go along with that or were you quite surprised to see some of the images when they came out I thought you make it sound like it was something that was put together against my world I don't know whether it was or it wasn't to mean you were young it would be quite understandable photographs yeah you know because at that time I was a dancer and I think that was what you saw yourself as first and foremost no no I saw myself as a singer but I was also a dancer and how do you present yourself as a singer in a photograph and this standing in front of a microphone I was very comfortable in my body I was a dancer those dancers are you know all the dances when I was in dance classes used to wear the guitars there was no big deal yeah okay welcome to the show thank you very much for letting me get pop around to see you now so we are here to talk about the album 50 words for snow uh wintry and title and in sound and I did read that you'd been wanting to make a wintry record for ages what what did you mean by that yeah yeah I did I mean I'm not sure why really but it just I suppose I really love winter and um I just love the idea of trying to create an album that had that kind of atmosphere that goes with winter and when um I started writing um quite soon it became honed down to just snow right and what was it about snow why just snow well I just think it's incredibly fascinating I mean it's you know since I was a kid I'm sure like like all of us you know it has this incredible magical quality and because we're lucky here we don't get tons of it we don't get snowed in for months on end it still has a sort of you know sort of preciousness without it being you know a complete pain in the art it's been here a few weeks but no you're right I think the interesting thing about snow is that when it arrives it makes everybody into a child in a way doesn't it because you do feel there is something wonderful about it um so there is that quality but there's also like you know with winter and snow a lot of that imagery is kind of often used to convey sort of sadness and loss is there any of that on the record do you think well I suppose there is I mean I think in a lot of ways once I kind of focused in on this idea of snow then of course Offspring all these different imageries that go with snow I mean the fact that it's so fleeting that you know it's there and then it melts away and uh you know the sort of sense of Silence that you also get with with snow and um you know the magical side but like you say also perhaps the sort of more desolate connections as well you talk about it being atmospheric and it certainly is I mean it's a very atmospheric record but I find that interesting that you have this kind of it's like it's a constructed approach to something that actually you might think is is kind of done in an intuitive way because you know you're looking to capture the atmosphere of something would you say that you have a kind of planned approach to making when you're actually starting on you know a specific track or or are you an intuitive worker songwriter well I suppose it depends with each album you know with this one what what happened I think was that because I immediately before starting this been working on the album director's car which is a really difficult album to make as soon as I'd finished that there was this incredible sense of elation because suddenly I could start from scratch I could write new songs and I could go wherever I wanted and also I was still in that mental space of being mental space mind space or mental space of being in the studio without you know it's sort of being taken off into you know promotion or whatever you would normally you when you finish an album and it was it was weird because this album that she had a real kind of flow to the whole process and was fun and actually quite I wouldn't say easy but it wasn't a difficult album to make it had a kind of freedom to it yes it did and a lot of it was um me just kind of sitting at the piano letting these songs evolve it's interesting that you you know you've done these two records in a year which is no small undertaking um but that one is kind of you know the idea of revisiting music and then the other one is very much the absolute blank page um which was scarier or the revisiting it was scary because I thought it was going to be really easy and it wasn't and I hadn't expected that well I thought you know all the songs were written it was just a matter of banging some new vocals down and you know just kind of you know stripping some of the tracks out and putting more space in and but but it wasn't like that at all it was really it was quite um technical on a lot of levels because we edited a lot of the tracks to make them longer and put more space in them and then when I came to actually sing the tracks it was just it was so not what I'd expected because I was trying to be that person then and of course then I'd put so much work into those vocals anyway I didn't actually quite know if I was going to be able to better them or equal them or and then what happened was I worked out that if we took songs down in key I could get in as me now and that was that was the Turning Point once once I did that I could then sing them as me now and not this person from years ago so there were all these kind of weird elements that went with the album that I just wasn't expecting and how do you feel having had such a creative year I mean you know to put two records out and you know be reaching the end of the year now do you feel a sense of satisfaction or is it sheer exhaustion where where are we at this point well I think shock is it I still can't believe I've actually managed to finish this record in time for this winter because you know it's not the sort of Records you could put out in the summer so if I hadn't been able to get it out for this winter I would have had to wait until next winter and I really didn't want to I wanted it to be quite fresh and so huge relief and shock sorry about the shock but congratulations on the relief there are some interesting contributions on the record from a few people that I'd like to ask you about Stephen Fry Elton John and and your son as well as Bertie is is he the first voice we hear that on the record yes yeah how did how did they come about starting with Bertie why did you decide to get him involved well um he's got at the moment his he still has his very high high voice he can reach these incredibly beautiful pure notes very similar to a chorister and quite soon as you know he'll lose that voice as he starts to grow older and I wanted to try and capture his voice on tape at this point in a song that I really hoped would show him off so I I wrote the song for him but also was kind of drawing this parallel between the fleetingness of his voice and the life of a snowflake yeah and what about what about Elton John I know that he was a big hero of yours when you were growing up and you wrote the song for him that that he appears on there yes um you know he's still a big hero of mine I I think I think he's very special and he was a huge influence I mean when I was starting to write songs and um when I was writing this song and suddenly realized that it was going to become a duet um I just thought of him immediately and thought how great it would be if if he could get involved and was it fun to do in the studio the two of you no it was fantastic what about Stephen Fry who who does not sing oh no we should just in case we're about to play the tracks and people will hear it but um is he you know how did how did he well he just sing but he is very Musical and um when I'd written all these words which of course most of them are made up the idea was that they'd start off quite sensible but would gradually get sillier and sillier and I wanted someone who had a you know a great voice of authority and of course the thing about Stephen is he's so intelligent that everyone thinks that anything he says is really important but he also has an incredibly beautiful sounding voice I mean you know he's a fantastic actor he's a comedian he was uh I don't think anybody could have done it better so again I was so delighted when he could come in and do it he also has a sense of playfulness though I would say in the sense of fun yes is that something that's important to you yes very much so and I think this this song in particular creates an important balance on the album because it is just fun really and some of the tracks are quite long and possibly intense so she just have something that's a bit of fun is important yeah well especially again you know returning to the the wintry team there is a kind of poignance about winter and about and about snow as you say it is something that is this magical temporary State really because you know that that you know that it's it's not going to last for long um I wonder if that influenced the the actual recording of it you know the idea of capturing something that's what you do with a song when you're making a song really you are kind of capturing a moment and you can never quite capture the same one twice very poetic do you think that's true yeah I think it's very true and I think in a way this is what I started to find so interesting when I was writing about snow the imagery just kept coming I mean I I think I could easily have written another album's worth I mean I say that you know I I don't know but it was I certainly wasn't lost for inspiration dealing with just that one subject so perhaps in some ways that's where the myth of 50 words for snow comes from because again the idea of having so many words about one thing is is such a beautiful idea isn't it panic your music sits at an interesting uh kind of point which is the point that is sort of straddles and is both pop music and art and I think that's an external perception I think that's something that other people would say I don't think of those two things as different I think pop music can be art enough in his art but I wondered what you thought about that yeah I mean I think you're right I think you know pop music can be art and I think art can be so many different things and um I guess you know I've never really thought of myself as being part of the you know the pop industry you know uh it's it's kind of just something that I do I make albums and I suppose I feel there's quite a naturally evolving process that I've moved through that is gradually starting to move away from pop music and you know probably connected with me getting older and also the idea that each time I start an album I want to try and do something different and also I really like working in these longer forms like you know before I've maybe worked on a side of an help them or a CD that was conceptual and with this record it was playing with the idea of longer song structures so rather than just working within a three or four minute structure to just kind of let them unfold and let the story be able to um you know just become much more uh and more involved Journey so that's something that's developed over the years how long did it take you to get to that point I mean you know say when you were working on the kick inside was your was your songwriting process very different to the way it is now no I'm not sure it was I think in a way this album is probably the most similar to that album because so much of it was to do with sitting down at the piano and writing the songs before I went into the studio and with some other albums I've actually written in the studio you know just put rough ideas down and then developed them listening to your records listening to all of your records I think you always get a sense of someone who's very sure of themselves and very sure of of what they want to say in some ways but I wonder whether anybody can really feel like that at 19. when you listen back to the records that you made at first you know because when anybody's a teenager they're not quite themselves you become yourself I think as you get older do you look back at those records or listen back to those records and kind of hear a different person hear a different you um well I don't really listen to my older but if I ever hear you know bits from my really early albums I mean yeah I mean it's just a completely different person I mean I think you know in essence I'm the same but I think I think you know my music sounds really different to me but I I would want that I wouldn't want it to sound the same I think you know hopefully you want to evolve and change through life you mentioned the music industry and and kind of you know feeling at arm's length from the the kind of industry aspect of of Music um but I was interested to ask you about that because obviously you've seen you know been making records for a long time now and and seen the music industry change a lot you know going from this kind of it seems like you know in the 70s it must have been a time of great sort of hubris and and really high tide and now in some ways you know people say the music industry is at a low ebb certainly the business side of it is is in in Dire Straits pardon the pun um you know what do you what do you think about the way things are now do you think there's a lot to be gained for artists to to release their own stuff to kind of Take Back Control or or is it more difficult that people you know people can't get signed they don't have the financial support of a big record label to help them along well I think I think you know all businesses are having real problems everyone's struggling because of the economic climate but also you know just this enormous kind of period of change that we're all going through with uh you know technology and I think just the whole planet is going through this incredible sort of changing scary time and I think uh you know probably a lot of stuff that we're going through now will settle down in a few years and then change again and I think um I think the great thing about the music business is that it does and should ultimately revolve around music and music will always be there and will always be important in a lot of ways um and I think the one thing I do get concerned about is that at the moment I feel there's this sense of Music being made um disposable in a way that there's so much of it and there's it's almost being devalued by a lot of the processes that are going on you know I would hate to see the album as an art form uh you know being left behind because I think I I love albums you know I grew up listening to albums not just a track and I think you know it's great to listen to Just one track but it's nice to keep that longer form as well so I think it's gonna be very interesting to see what happens and in some ways I think it's more difficult for new artists but in other ways it's easier so it's just this whole process presumably will settle down into something but what that's going to be yes yeah another kind of defining characteristic of Music at the moment is that you know irony intended the the female solo artist is King at the moment that is you know very much kind of a dominant Trend and and obviously you are someone who always comes up when we get you know when a new female singer-songwriter comes through often I mean Florence is the obvious example Florence Welch has been you know compared compared to you um do you think that times have changed for women making music and that there is a more of a concentration on on what they create rather than what they look like for example um yeah I mean I hope so and I think like you say there's such a wealth of female Talent at the moment it's great about time too I mean when you were first in you know part of the pop scene and say released your first record was was there kind of a prevalence of sexist attitudes do you think in in the music industry that you wouldn't really be allowed to espouse or kind of behavior that you wouldn't get away with these days did you ever come up against that um I think I was really lucky in a lot of ways because um I I had such a lot of support from the people that I work with and also from my family and and I was so driven I'm not sure I would have been aware of a lot of stuff that was going on around me anyway in that kind of way because it was just I just had this incredible determination and focus to to you know make an album was the first was the first goal and then to make another one did you did kind of find Fame and stop making music at a very young age what was that experience like what was the experience the the kind of famousness part the part that you know you've always seemed to have shied away from well I suppose you know it was kind of my first hit was was that you know I mean none of us thought that the album or the singer would be particularly successful at all and it was um it was a shock you know it was uh not what any of us thought would happen and quite surreal and you just kind of get carried Along by it and you just go with it and it was it was quite funny in a lot of ways and and exciting and and um then I suppose quite early on I began to realize that all my time was being spent promoting and traveling around the world which was a lot of fun but it meant I wasn't spending the time on the actual creative process which was what that's what I'd wanted I'd never really been driven to be famous that wasn't the desire so I realized that it was all getting turned upside down so I then made a decision to just turn it back round again and make the main bulk of my time spent making albums you said that you did actually love playing live you very much enjoyed it but that you wanted as you say to focus on making records of being in the studio is that where you're happiest um yeah I mean I love making albums and it wasn't that I'd ever thought I'll never tour again but it's just it's just kind of the way things went I became much more involved in the whole um process of production and and the album started to take longer and um so you know that's that's just how it happened what happens after you've made a record usually uh you've made two this year and as you were saying you know a little bit in shock but equally delighted uh will you take a break now or are you somebody who always likes to be working now I definitely take a break yeah I've uh I've got a lot of catching up to do lots of piles of stuff around the house to to try and clear I click a clear out yeah I think a clear out time definitely right is this a sporadicate brush activity well uh you know it's it's been really intense actually the last few years because especially when I finished director's car because um when I was then sort of halfway through this album I had to start promoting director's car and I almost at some points got confused about which album I was meant to be talking about and so there was these two really consuming projects going on at the same time and um yeah so I mean so it's been very busy and and fun really fun but very busy and uh you know I'm looking forward to have some time to just chill a bit well listen we're very glad that you completed them so successfully thank you very much for talking to us oh thank you very much it's been lovely to me it's lovely to meet you too okay thank you on the 26th of August 2014 Kate Bush walked on stage at the Hammersmith Apollo in London kicking off her first series of concerts in 35 years the 22 show residency entitled before the dawn was as inventive and original as anything in Kate's remarkable musical back catalog the scale and Theatrical ambition of the production stunned audiences it was unlike any concert before or since these legendary gigs have now been documented in a new live album also called before the dawn and to Mark the release Kate has done a rare interview her first in five years in fact to talk about the concerts the themes behind them and her experiences returning to the stage her previous tour the tour of life actually came to an end at the very same venue that hosted before the dawn the Hammer Smith Apollo which is where a conversation started so this is 14th of May 1979. can you remember do you remember how you felt like walking off stage on the last night uh completely exhausted because there was this kind of myth that like it was difficult and maybe you didn't you didn't have fun but you've seen the kind of said actually you did really enjoy this oh yeah yeah no it was great fun yeah yeah it was a bit like being in a circus Troop s it was a lot of fun yeah but really it was so physical and a long show as well I was completely exhausted because we know why you stopped playing live which is to spend time with your family and focus on being a recording artist but how long before the offers kind of started coming in did the phone start ringing quite soon after that at 279. well the intention had always been to actually do another set of shows after I'd done another two albums so that I could have a new material for the next shows but then as I got to that what would have been the fourth album I'd become much more involved in the whole recording process and and was starting to produce and it it just became a kind of slightly different path than the one I'd imagined a few years beforehand so I there was no never an intention to go for such a long time without doing shows at all it just kind of went off in a different direction did people call you up and try and convince you to do it um I can't remember it's a very long time ago and there were a couple of points where I thought that I would get a chance to do some some live work but for whatever reason it just never it never really happened I suppose you know when albums have taken such a long time to make and then there's always this sort of process post album where you know there's an element of uh promotion but also making visuals to go with it which I always get very involved in and then before you know it you know the the time has kind of rolled on and it almost feels like it's it's the time to start a new project and I suppose the longer that it got the more I just started to feel that perhaps I wouldn't do shows again so what changed your mind I guess this is the question this is the first big question isn't it big succession and I really felt like doing something different I really wanted to do something that wasn't going to mean sitting in the studio for a couple of years just putting an album together so it just felt like the right time it was it was a fun idea to toy with but actually pushing the button to go was something that I had to really seriously build up to was there a certain amount of fear before kind of making that call and going right I don't know when but it is going to happen were you quite nervous yeah I was terrified I the idea of putting the show together was something that I found really interesting and really exciting to be able to put a visual theatrical piece together but to actually step into it was something that I had to really I had to really work hard on because I was I was terrified of of doing live work as a performer again what role did Bertie play in your son Bertie played in your decision to kind of come back he was really key because um it was something that I wanted him to be involved in because you know he's he's very um he's very creative and he was very positive about the whole idea of of doing some shows so you've said okay I'm gonna do this whether certain I don't know kind of criteria that you put down okay if I do it then don't be like right we're gonna do six dates at the Wembley then we're gonna spend four years on tour I mean how did it what were the parameters that you put for yourself again yeah well again you know that I had toyed with ideas uh beforehand you know if I were to do some live work and I think the thing that made it really interesting for me was that I wanted to mainly base it around to the conceptual albums that I'd done so that it was working with a narrative rather than just uh individual songs I said there was already a kind of sketched shape in the I knew I wanted to start with a bunch of songs that would seem as if it were just a straight concert that would then slip into the ninth wave and then the the other half of the show would be Sky of honey so that there would be this enormous contrast between the two pieces because you know they're completely different they're sort of opposing in their atmospheres and um Journeys I mean it's it's quite an obvious question but did you did you enjoy it did you enjoy the shows did you have fun um because it's a simple question but with something this large you know it's a complex one as well I think well I was I was pretty terrified most most nights really and it was like I said it was that thing of trying to hold on to the now so that I would know where I was in the song which I think you know probably did give me an element of um real kind of concentration genuine concentration on on what I was doing um towards the end yes I was just starting to feel relaxed enough to enjoy parts of it the bit I really enjoyed was the end because I knew that I wouldn't uh have to try and remember the ones for much longer do you regret not doing it earlier were you like oh this feels brilliant why why did I not do this before well I don't know that's a hard thing to say isn't it because I think you know had I done it before then perhaps the same level of material wouldn't have existed I was up there as somebody who had lived their life up to that point it would have it would have been a different show I don't know if I can say I wished I'd done it before but I'm really glad that I did do this it was a really incredible experience it was it was wonderful working with all those people and it was very moving uh filling the response from the audiences every night to have that connection it was very special I'm really pleased that that we all got up there and did that [Music] foreign
2023-02-14 12:05
