FEATURE:
Q & A
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at the Q Awards on 29th October, 2001
A Return to Kate Bush and a Wonderful 2001 Double
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BECAUSE I am engrossed…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: John Stoddart
in Tom Doyle’s book Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush, there are new ideas forming! I have been re-reading various sections and learning new stuff. One of the interesting sections concerns 2001. This is a year when, in terms of Bush’s music, she was working on Aerial. It had been years since put out any albums or singles, and it will be another four years until Aerial came out. Rather than coming out of the wilderness and this being a shock return, I think that Bush was in a place when she felt more settled, and she was happy to be seen. There is a good reason for it. There was a double event/honour that happened in 2001. The now-defunct Q interviewed Bush in 2001, and she was also being honoured at their annual award ceremony. Rather wonderfully, as Tom Doyle sets the scene, Kate Bush was interviewed in Harrods in October 2001. The writer John Aizlewood was worried he would not be able to recognise Kate Bush. After all, the last time she appeared on T.V. was in 1994 when she performed a rather tired version of The Red Shoe’s final single, And So Is Love. Bush would actually perform on the stage in 2002 in a rare live appearance. She did star in the video for Aerial’s single, King of the Mountain, but there were to be no live performances or T.V. interviews for that album. She has done a lot of media interviews, but most have been conducted in a secret location or one of her homes. For Q in 2001, Bush agreed to be interviewed in quite a public place. One where a lot of London natives, tourists and people who know her music could have clocked her! I guess years had past and many might not have instantly been able to place her. The potentially embarrassing task for Aizlewood was, perhaps, having to shout ‘Kate!’ across a busy department store!
Many who mythologise Bush or feel she is a recluse who lives in a castle on a gothic hill would imagine she’d stand out in some black cloak or shrouded in weird colours. Perhaps emerging from some smoke in the corner! In actuality, she was dressed down in jacket and trousers. This was, after all, someone who three years early had become a mother. Her son Albert (Bertie) was a big reason that Aerial took a while to come out. And it also impacted the sound of the album and the general mood I feel. I like the fact that Bush spotted Aizlewood scanning around. Bush waved in his direction and the two sat down for a pot of tea. Although this was a public setting, it seemed that time away (and people shopping and concentrating on other things) meant that Bush could be interviewed in Harrods. It is not something she did again. Her post-2001 interviews were a lot more private and had fewer members of public around her! Thinking about the date, and this was about a month after the terrorist attacks in the U.S. 9/11 had rocked the world so, a month later, it still must have been weird for Bush or any artist to speak or do any promotion. Bush’s old friend Peter Gabriel accidentally let slip in 2000 that Bush had become a mother. Of course, this sparked a tonne of media hysteria and rumours. The sense that this ‘secret’ child was being hidden away. It was the sadly predictable and ridiculous rumours Bush had had to deal with since 1978. This sense of her being weird or some reclusive figure.
Bush had heard that she was being given a special honour at Q’s 2001 award ceremony. Perhaps wanting to clear up rumours or speak about her family, this was also a chance for her to pre-promote an album, or at least let people know she was not retired and was working on stuff. EMI definitely would have favoured this approach, and it probably bought her more time to get her double album completed. There were no terrific revelations or surprises from the interview. The biggest shock was the location of the interview, and the fact Bush was sort of back in the spotlight (however briefly) after her last interview in 1994. Bertie and Danny McIntosh (Bush’s partner, he also has played with her since The Red Shoes) were at Harrods. They said a quick ‘hello’ before heading off shopping. As Tom Doyle explains in his book, Bush told John Aizlewood that she was delighted being a mother: “People say that magic doesn’t exist, but I look at him, think, “I gave birth to him,”, and I know magic does exist. I don’t want to miss a second”. One could not imagine a less family-orientated artist in 1993 when Bush was promoting The Red Shoes. Her own mother died in 1992, and I think the exhaustion Bush felt meant she just wanted to take time out and focus on herself. She told Aizlewood how she was fatigued after her (then) current album. Recuperating by resting, watching a lot of bad T.V. and not making music, prior to giving birth, she had lived in central London.
Revealing that she was working on new music, Bush was cagey when it came to more details and plans. She explained how she can’t really talk about something that isn’t complete. This interview came a week before Bush arrived at the Park Lane Hotel on 29th October, 2001. Just over four years to the day later, Bush would release Aerial to the world. On this particular night, she was to collect an award and rub shoulders with a lot of musicians that admired her work and were excited to see her. One thing I did not know is that Bush had been booed when she arrived at the ceremony! Rather than posing on the red carpet for snaps and autographs etc., she walked down without pause – as any normal person would. That provoked a chorus of boos from the press, rather than any fans waiting there. Bush was deflated – as John Aizlewood was there with her -, but it was a bad start to what should be a magical night! One reason why I wanted to write about this particular week/event in Bush’s life is because it showed how relevant she always has been. Many might have written her off in 2001. Suggesting she was done for after a lacklustre response to The Red Shoes and her short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve, did people expect her to make any more music? Elvis Costello was in attendance and, upon encountering Kate Bush, was reduced to jelly-like levels of fanboy blushing and humbleness! Bush had made her way down the red carpet for the same reason she did not get the fuss that some were paying her: it never occurred that her peers would be pleased to see her after so long away.
Bush was here to receive the Classic Songwriter Award. Midge Ure presented the award. Upon reaching the stage and the podium Bush, with typical humour, delivered a line from The Fast Show: “Ooh, I’ve just come!”. Four years after the legendary comedy had ended, perhaps people may not have got the reference. The laughter in the room suggested that people did! An unexpected first few words to say at such a lavish event, it was very much in keeping with Bush’s humour, normalness and her adding a bit of edge and excitement to an award ceremony that very much needed it! A big fan of Bush’s John Lydon had his photo taken with her. The two were old friends, and he sung her praises at the event. Noting that Bush faced the same sort of criticism that he did when in thew Sex Pistols, they were kindred spirits in many ways (although their musical paths and personalities were quite different!). Lydon, when faced with Kate Bush, was very much more subdued and schoolboy-like. Rather than this being a snarling Punk icon, he was just like everyone else: completely in awe and unsure quite what to say. Producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck, Paul McCartney) met Bush too and suggested (in the main room as he spoke to reporters) he’d jump at the chance to work on Bush’s new material. That is a collaboration that could be interesting, though Bush producers her own work and has an engineer (Del Palmer). John Aizlewood caught some final words, where Bush revealed that the last record she’d bought for Bertie was Bob the Builder’s Can We Fix It? She had also quit smoking (which she took up as a child pretty much), and that there was some after-party drinks happening – whose exact location and guest list was withheld.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush with Sir Tom Jones in 2012 at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards/PHOTO CREDIT: Richard Young/Rex Features
Having arrived at the Q ceremony and it starting very badly, it then progressed and ended wonderfully! The birth of Bertie was a key component when it came to Bush writing more music and wanting to put an album out. The 2001 award also cemented the fact that there was demand and this fascination after so many years. It was clear that there was a split in perception. The tabloid press would write her off, create these lies and always see Bush as some weird person who kept to herself. Her peers and the respectable press held her in high esteem and were always on her side! It would be four years until the public got an album, but that 2001 honour and night of celebration definitely had an impact! One wonders whether an award honour now would have the same effect on Bush. Of course, we’d rather not wait another four years for an album. Some say that the fact Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was featured on Stranger Things and topped the charts will provide a catalyst for new material. Let us hope! Very few people expected Bush to appear like she did in 2001. First, giving this interview with Q at Harrods. A week later, she followed that by collecting a Classic Songwriter Award, surrounded by fans and peers. In 2012, Bush was back on the award stage because of the South Bank Sky Arts Awards. Being honoured for 50 Words for Snow, papers like The Daily Mail proclaimed that Kate Bush was back after fourteen years. I am not sure what maths they were doing, as 1998 was not a year where she retreated or released a new album. It was a ‘return’ to the award stage after eleven years or so. Bush won a few awards in 2012 for 50 Words for Snow; the Ivor Novello Awards bestowed her the Outstanding Contribution to British Music gong. She would also pick up an award for Before the Dawn (her twenty-two-date live residency in London) in 2014 on behalf of the Evening Standard. In any case, her 2001 interview with Q and the subsequent award win was such…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush with John Lydon at the Q Awards in October 2001
A pivotal moment in her career.