a Kate Bush interview on TV

[Henry Chai <chai%utflis%toronto.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>]

On Aug.3 & 4, a TV show called "The New Music", produced  by  CityTV  here  in
Toronto  (which also produces MuchMusic, the Canadian equilvalent of MTV), con-
tained a 5 minute interview of Kate Bush.  I'd like to share  it here with the
people in (at? on? of?) lovehounds.
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    NM: It has been three years since Kate Bush released her last  album  "The
        Dreaming".   Now  at last comes a new single and video called "Running
        Up that Hill".  It's taken from the new album "Hounds of  Love"  which
        is due out in September.

[clips of RUTH]

        The "Hounds of Love" record represents a return to the  gentler  tones
        for  which  Kate  Bush is most admired.  To many people "The Dreaming"
        has been inaccessible, her singing abbrasive.  When I met  Kate  on  a
        trip to England last March, we talked about "The Dreaming.

[they were seated on the ground in what looks like a dance studio; mirrors
on one wall and a grand piano at the back]

    KB: I think the last album is very dark and about pain and negativity, and
        the way that people treat each other badly. It was a sort of cry real-
        ly and I think that perhaps the biggest influence on  the  last  album
        was  the  fact  that  I was producing it so I could actually do what I
        wanted for the first time.  And then there are  a  lot  of  things  we
        wanted to experiment with and I particulary wanted to play around with
        my voices, because there are a lot of  different  backing  vocals  and
        things  like  that.   The  different textures were important to me.  I
        wanted to try and create pictures with the sounds by using effects.


    NM: You have been, I think, popularly associted  with  a very,  ah,  sweet
        voice,  and what you were doing some places on "The Dreaming" was mak-
        ing very glutteral sounds, hoarse and raw,  deliberately  making  your
        voice crack.

    KB: Yes, I find it much more interesting. The first two  albums  my  voice
        really  wasn't capable of doing that.  I think my writing and my voice
        have continually tried to get better, to be able to do something I ac-
        tually like.  And It's very frustrating when you are writing songs and
        singing them, and you're not enjoying what's coming back.  So hopeful-
        ly, y'know, it will be become more pleasurable for me, the actual pro-
        cess, because it is painful to listen to things that sound awful, when
        you really wanted them to sound good.

[clips of "Sat in your Lap"]

    NM: Those earlier songs "Breathing" and "Army  Dreamers",  have  what  you
        might  call a political conscience.  Now that so many groups are doing
        political music, like the Ethiopia Famine Relief Fund music that  sort
        of thing, is your new album going to contain something similar?

    KB: No, I don't think..., actually there aren't any tracks that are polit-
        ical  as  such.  I never felt that I've written from a political point
        of view.  It's always been an emotional point of view that  just  hap-
        pens  to  perhaps be a political situation.  I mean war is an extremly
        emotional situation, especially if you're going to  be  blown  up!   I
        think with the whole thing of nuclear war, people are really terrified
        and increasingly so the more that we hear on the media  all  the  time
        about  it.   I  think  writers  always  do have a conscience about the
        things that scare them, they wanted to write about  them,  to  relieve
        themselves.

[clips of "Breathing"]

    NM: I'm remined by a painting in the corner here, which is a sort  of  sa-
        tire  of  a  Pre_Raphaelite  painting, that I always have thought that
        those Victorian painters, the Pre-Raphaelites, were an  influenece  to
        the texture of your song writing.

    KB: Yes, yes. I think that was particularly in my very early teens  I  was
        very  enchanted  by the whole romance of it, yes.  They find their way
        into songs, the imagery.  I think that's what happens:  something  at-
        tracts you because of its imagery and you digest it and it comes up in
        a song. I think that's how artists work; they are like magpies,  pick-
        ing up little bits of gold and storing them away.

[clips of RUTH]

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Henry Chai 
Faculty of Library and Information Science, U of Toronto
{watmath,ihnp4,allegra}!utzoo!utflis!chai        
 .