yEt aNOther kate bUsh interview -- Got a lot more on tHe way, too!

[IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu]

The following is a two-year-old interview from an unidentified UK
magazine. IED just received it (or more accurately all but the first
page of it) from a UK fan, but he has no idea who did the interview
or which publication it originally appeared in. (:>oug, any idea?)

	[ Well, I do have a copy of this interview at home, so I could
          probably dig it out and tell you, if anyone really cares...
          -- |>oug ]

It's an interesting article, though, so here it is. As usual IED
reserves the right to interrupt with obnoxious comments of his own
whenever he wants.


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                    What Kate Bush Did Next
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

...and half-baked legend, most of it nonsense no doubt, though inquiries
about why she has been off the recording scene for three years -- an age,
in pop -- met with a chilly and defensive response from her record
company.
    When the Bush phenomenon was at stage one of its ascent to rock
legend, an unauthorised biography by the husband-and-wife team of
Fred and Judy Vermorel -- their other literary exploits
include a lurid account of the early Pistols and recently a
graphic collection of pop star groupies' fantasies -- suggested
that Kate was highly eccentric. The Vermorels' so-called scrupulous
research uncovered such nuggets as reports that as a schoolgirl Kate
had been prone to rolling around in muddy ditches in an effort to
commune with nature.
    "I've read so many extraordinary things about myself, such
preconceptions..." She raises large, limpid eyes to the ceiling
and smiles a dimpled smile. "Really, my only concern is to separate
home life from business. When people intrude on personal matters it's
hard to be creative."
    Because she was a child star, a childlike image persists, though
she is now 27, with a recording career that spans five albums and
a string of 13 hit singles, including the recent smash "Running Up
That Hill".
    Three years' absence and the arrival of raunchier sex popstars
like Madonna and Frankie don't seem to have diminished her strange
appeal. The allure is as potent as it was ten years ago.
    "I never felt too young to be a musician. I'd written since I
was fourteen, and my only ambition was to get ten songs on to a piece
of plastic. It couldn't have happened fast enough. School inhibited me.
I had only one close friend (she still is) [this is probably Lisa, who
works on the Kate Bush Club Newsletter, among other things -- ed.] who
I felt able to tell about the record deal. It wasn't until I left
school that I found real strength inside. I was lucky that Dave
Gilmour liked my demos, but all the rest was karma, it was meant to
be..."
     Karma. The Kate Bush conversation is peppered with old-fashioned
phrases that recall a period when self-awareness was de rigueur.
And Kate admits she isn't impressed by pop's ever-changing moods:
"I've never even seen a Madonna video and I don't like pop music
much. Radio One infuriates me. I'd rather listen to the silly
programmes on Radio Four, or to classical music like Delius,
Bach and Satie."
    Nor is she convinced by the need for publicity. "It's
promotion. But people ask questions you'd only answer under
psycho-analysis." A friendly, uncertain interviewee, Kate is
by no means a lost innocent. She ends replies with
an endearing but emphatic squeak and a smile that says, "This
is all very nice but let's get it over with."  She rarely lets
her guard drop.
     She seems to have forgotten that in the middle seventies
she was one of only a few women to break into the male-dominated
domain of pop and get taken seriously. "I was only a symptom of
the change, like coming out in spots," she giggles. "There was
a tendency to patronise women as though if they were attractive
they weren't talented, which I fought against, but my principles
weren't entirely feminist. I find it flattering if people like the
way I look, but I don't have the sex symbol's sense of style.
     "I make an effort to produce beautiful, tasteful videos and
album covers, but I'm not into dressing up, and I'm not interested
in clothes." Kate motions to her outfit to prove the point. She's
wearing what looks like one of boyfriend Del Palmer's jackets, old
blue shirt, oversized black tie, jeans and boots, all set off by mane
of Pre-Raphaelite hair.
    "I'm not a trendy city person at all, in fact I've become a
country type since I left London. The stimulus of the countryside
is fantastic. I sit at my piano and watch skies moving and trees
blowing and that's far more exciting than buildings and roads and
millions of people.
    "Communing with nature is no bad thing. I use it as an escape,
but that doesn't mean I hug trees at three o'clock in the morning."
Kate smiles at the thought and gazes out the studio window where
Eltham's sedate suburban calm is only broken by the gentle noise
of neighbours mowing substantial lawns.
    "Maybe bits of me don't want to grow up. Maybe I am an escapist,
a romantic, but I think if you've got an artistic  -- horrible word!
bent, that's essential. I dislike cynicism. It's bad energy. Does that
make me childlike?"
    When asked if she ever thinks about having children Kate looks
genuinely perplexed. "What an odd question. I've never given it much
thought. My career takes up so much time that children don't figure
yet. I don't see myself as maternal. It's nice if you think I am.
I like maternal people."
    Ms. Bush's natural reticence stems in part from the fact that
her songs are intensely emotional exercises, often dealing with personal
traumas, terrors and nightmares. She sees no need to elaborate.
"If they are personal that's because they reflect influences digested
from, say, films, books or painting. My personal experiences aren't
anywhere near interesting enough to justify autobiographical writing.
I just use them as guides.
    "I've had a calm life but I am fascinated by the negative aspects
of terror. Isn't everyone? Horrible things fire my imagination. Without
them there'd be no film industry. And tragic and scary things _are_
disturbing and powerful. I do have a special fascination for films like
_Don't Look Now_ and _The Cruel Sea_ -- watery films. I hope I'm not
writing from a morbid point of view. I like positive endings. Humour
is just as important as a means for relaxing."
    Monty Python man Terry Gilliam and comedian Robbie Coltrane are
credited on her latest album _Hounds of Love_ and she speaks of their
work with affection. "Childish things amuse me, noises and silly
faces. I adore _Fawlty Towers_ and _The Young Ones_, the psychology
behind them is intriguing."
    Kate goes off to make tea and find a light for her roll-up. I
survey the studio. It is a sparsely decorated room with a wall of
mirrors for choreography, a TV, a video she can't work yet, some
records. The few personal objects include two guitars, a box of
ultra-violet make-up and a stuffed toy Alsatian that escaped from
next door where the rooms are full of her old childhood possessions.
    At one end of the studio is a huge painting of a drowned, cracked
doll floating face up past a sewer. For some reason this painting,
which might be described as macabre-kitsch, seems to say a lot about
its owner. Kate returns and sees me examining it. "That's called
_The Hogsmill Ophelia_. A lot of people find it disturbing but I don't.
I lived with it for ages. Looked at it every day. That picture cost
me all the money I had once. Paintings are a great inspiration. One
of my favourites is by Millais [British Pre-Raphaelite painter
John Everett Millais, 1829-1896. -- ed.], _The Huguenot_ [Technically,
_A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day, Refusing to Shield Himself
from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge_, 1851-52. -- ed.]
It's of a man going off to the wars being hugged to the breast of
his lover. She's holding him to her by a scarf around his arm. It's
very beautiful."
    Kate's reveries are broken by the phone ringing. Good news and
bad news. The good news is that her record has jumped straight into
the Top Ten -- "Another number one would be terrific, fantastic,
amazing." The bad news is that the album artwork must be changed
immediately. Side Two of the disk, a concept piece called _The Ninth
Wave_, has been wrongly coupled with a verse from Alfred Lord
Tennyson's _The Holy Grail_. The quotation turns out to be from another
poem altogether [_The Coming of Arthur_ -- ed.]. The connotations of
this faux pas are immensely embarassing to Kate.
    Not surprisingly, she is rather ruffled, and so the conversation
ends with a few pleasantries about future plans. She has no great
desire to act, she says, though a long-form video, perhaps shot by
Terry Gilliam, illustrating the concept music, is in the pipeline.
[Wouldn't that have been incredible? Oh, well, KBVI will soon be with us.
Maybe then. -- ed.] Live performances -- another Kate Bush multi-media
singing, dancing, miming extravaganza -- are mooted but not promised.
     "People ask what I _really_ did in the three years between
_The Dreaming_ and _Hounds of Love_. I spent it with my family, living
a normal home life. Recently I've been getting fit and healthy again
and dancing with my teacher Diana Gray. That's why all the mirrors are
here. I hate looking at myself all the time, but for practice they're
essential."
    Meanwhile, back in the Manchester Square offices of Kate's record
company her beleaguered press office were frantically fending off
inquiries from the gossip columns, all desperate for some novel Bush
_scam_. Was Kate into the occult now? they wanted to know. Was she
into mysticism? Did she practice astrology? The Bush aides sighed and
squashed all the rumours.
    "The thing about Kate," one told me later, "is that she really
is a simple soul. You could never call her quote-a-minute Kate.
People take a perverse interest in her. She comes here once in a blue
moon, and even then she won't reveal much. Kate's much too smart for
that."
    After two hours in the company of this charming woman, I knew
exactly what he meant.


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That's all, folks. Another interview coming to Love-Hounds soon.
-- Andrew Marvick