FEATURE:
The Kate Bush Interview Archive
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in album cover outtake for The Dreaming (1982)/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
1982: The Dreaming Interview from CBAK 4011 CD
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THIS feature…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a single cover outtake for Sat In Your Lap/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
allows me to look back on interviews through Kate Bush’s career. Until now, they have been print interviews. I am going back to 1982, because The Dreaming Interview from CBAK 4011 CD (which has appeared in bootleg forms through the years) is interesting to read. Whilst some of the conversation has been transcribed with question marks and a lack of certainty in spots, I do really like the discussion. It is an interview where Bush and the interviewer were sitting down for a meal. I really like the interviews from 1982. This one caught my eye because of the connection between the interviewer and Bush. As this website explains about this particular case: “Originally transcribed by Stephen Thomas and edited by Jeffrey Burka. This edition is by Andrew Marvick [Second part transcribed by Ronald Hill. This contains more of the interview then was originally contained in the transcription, probably a different bootleg. In order to get a decent transcription, computer analysis was utilitized”:
“I've just got back from Europe, and I only got back the day before yesterday and I spent yesterday catching up on all the stuff I got behind with when I was in Europe."
What were you doing there?
"TV's and a little bit of radio, but mainly TV's, and we did Italy and Germany."
And was that for the album?
"Yes. It was indirectly for the album because out there The Dreaming -- the single -- is still happening."
It has done better over there, has it?
"Well, it's only just starting to happen, so we're doing TV's to help it, and every show we did, we did The Dreaming." So, you know, been testing to see how it does. But it all helps the album, really, so I was into doing it from that point of view. It's great, it's just very busy, that's all."
I saw the video to the Dreaming -- they eventually did get it on TV --
"Yeah!
Very...up to scratch, should I say, you know?
"You liked it?"
Umm! [Possibly affirmative.]
"Oh, good."
It was similar to the stage set, you know--the dancers, but it had the benefit of all the people in the background. Where was it shot? "We shot it in [unintelligible], which is a video studio in Wandsworth."
Oh, that was a studio? [Surprised.]
"Yeah!"
Crikey!
"It was a very good set, wasn't it? Incredible set designers."
Where did you get the guys from?
"We actually found those set designers through the director I was using, through their production company."
Who did direct it?
"It was Golden Dawn Productions, a guy called Paul Henry."
And what's going to be the next single that you're working on?
"Well, we've done the video for the next one, which is There Goes a Tenner."
Sorry?
"There Goes a Tenner."
What's that about? Is it about robbery?
"Yeah, yeah."
What, sort of pickpockets in the East End, et cetera?
"Yeah. It's about amateur robbers who have only done small things, and this is quite a big robbery that they've been planning for months, and when it actually starts happening, they start freaking out. They're really scared, and they're so aware of the fact that something could go wrong that they just freaked out, and paranoid and want to go home."
Do you think this one's going to be more successful than the last one?
"I don't know. I don't know what to think about the singles anymore."
Was it your idea for it to be a single?
"What, There Goes a Tenner? Yes. I think I was in full agreement with them. But I think I've reached a stage where, because The Dreaming didn't work, we all felt--especially from an airplay point of view--that in order to get airplay, which you need for a single to work, we should go for one that was more obvious, and there is no doubt that There Goes a Tenner is one of the more obvious songs."
Not that there are a lot on the album that are obvious."
"No, so we're just going for this and seeing what happens."
It's quite a bold move to go in that kind of direction, particularly when you've been out of the limelight for a year or two. How sensible do you think it is, to make? It's easily the least commercial step you've ever done, this album, at a time when perhaps you should have been doing the most."
"Yes. You see, from my point of view, although I've been out of the limelight, from the last album all I was planning to do was make another album as quickly as I could. But as soon as I wrote the songs I realized that it was very different, and all the time I do very much want to change my art, and I do actually think that the direction I'm going in is away from the commercial, well the obvious commercial. But I think from my point of view it wasn't so much because I was out of the limelight that I had to do something more commercial, because at that time I wasn't actually out of the limelight, I was just starting my next album, and I thought it was only going to take me a couple of months, but before I know it the whole thing has become much more involved, the songs are much more involved, and I know that it's going to take me at least six months to a year to get it the way I want. So by the time it's finished, I've been out of the public's eye for maybe...apart from Sat In Your Lap, of course."
So you've not really got a band, as such, any more, have you?
"No. That's actually quite a depressing thought."
Well, not really."
"Well, no, I suppose not, because it leaves me nice and open."
You see what Kevin Rowland's doing with Dexy's Midnight Runners?
"No...?"
He's got a central nucleus of about three, and the stage show incorporates about eleven, and he can't keep eleven people on wages, so he calls them up when he wants them."
"So he just keeps the three."
And I think that really how rock's going to move. And the people who aren't working with him, when they're not working with him, they've got a reputation from him to go on and do session work."
"You see, I think I'm a bit like that, in that right from the start I definitely carried two people with me all the way, or three I suppose, as Pad has always been with me."
He's your brother, though, isn't he?
"Yes, he is."
Is he a guitarist, or [does he] play accordion?
"No, he plays a lot of different instruments. Again, he really is the one who's allowed me to use unusual instruments because he happens to be able to play them, so it's great because Pad's got this real knack of being able to pick up nearly any instrument that's unusual and just have a feel for it."
Is he some kind of influence behind the dijeridu, for example?
"Yes, I do think Pad actually started the initial interest in me in unusual ethnic instruments, because for years he's been interested in them, and building them. Like you'll find an instrument that hasn't been made for hundreds of years, and he'll build one. That's very stimulating."
How old is Pad? Is he younger or older than you?
"No, he's older than me, yes, but I think he definitely has been a strong stimulus in that area. Especially with the instruments, because he's really brought to my notice a lot of instruments that I'd never heard of before, but he makes them familiar to me. I get to know the sound of them, and then maybe one day when I'm writing a song, I think 'Oh yeah, that sound that Pad had, that'd be great in there.'"
[Second part of the bootleg interview]
Are you doing some practice...?
"We're working for things , but we're not actually together as a unit. But the last thing about Del and Brian is that we've been together since the rock band that we had in the pubs, which is like, what, five years ago."
I'm sorry, which one is that?
"The KT Bush band, which is when we were going around the pubs."
And you've been with which one of the guys?
"With Brian Bath and Del Palmer, they've both been with me ever since. And they've maybe never played on all the albums, but they've been on each album for two or three tracks, and they were on the tour. And it's lovely because I feel that I would still want to use them in the future, which is great because in a way they are my traveling nucleus, just those three. But I would love to have a band, like a secure band, because I think that's a very good feeling. And even though you have a little personality problems, um, at least you're together... and they learn what you want. So eventually it must be so easy to communicate with them."
So Del's been with you, what, since post-Gilmour, EMI contract days or something.
"Yes, and so's Brian. Because before I actually started recording the album, the years when EMI was just sorta not doing anything, and I was more or less just doing things so that my time would be full, we got little three piece band together."
You are, you're into reincarnation a bit aren't you.
"Yes, I think so. I love the idea of a person during one lifetime actually having three or four lives."
Within the same lifetime?
"Yeah. You see I feel that reincarnation is perhaps just a continuation of that. Cause if you look at yourself or maybe other people, you can see little circles, that maybe they emit the..., say there's fifty or sixty, but these little circles have occurred each time, maybe in each phase of there life. You know, where they get into a rut, and come around to a very similar relationship to the one they had years ago, and it ends up in exactly the same way. They start again, exactly the same thing happens, and they end up where they are again. And its something ... maybe that little complete circle, and then break right away. And really, I mean, for myself, if I look at my life, in a way I feel I've led almost two lives. Because the first part of my life was so difficult, whereas the second part...
Which part?
"...the second stage..."
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982, performing The Dreaming on the German T.V. show, Na Sowas
Staying at home all day, composing?
"Yes, I would say from my life up until 16 and then from 17 up until now have been two completely different stages. I mean I changed my christian name, become a vegetarian, left school, go into dance..." Really, what was your christian name?
"Well, it's just that I used to be called Cathy and I became Kate. And that was a very different stage for me."
Why would Kate...be more sorta tided into the vegetarian thing I suppose.
"I don't know, but it actually created..."
Did you lose lots of weight or something?
"No, no I didn't. I think just becoming called that name gave me a chance to break away from the person I'd been before. I mean there's no doubt that when people change their names, they actually do change”.
There is quite a lot of the interview there. I am interested in the conversation. Whilst the audio, apparently, is not too clear, one can get a sense of the vibe. There is a genuine curiosity and interest in Kate Bush and the songs on The Dreaming. We also get to find out about Bush and working with the musicians. I like the fact that, unlike print interviews, you get this casual conversational style. It is quite scattershot and punctuated with some pauses and misheard responses. With an album like The Dreaming under her belt, I can only imagine the sort of response and interest people felt – knowing Kate Bush and her music but noticing that The Dreaming was something very different for her. When it comes to the interviews with Kate Bush from 1982, the one above…
IS one of the most unusual and intriguing.