Another KT interview...

[ganzer@trout.nosc.mil (Mark T. Ganzer)]

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The following interview appeared in the Oct 4, 1980 issue of Melody Maker.
Although the interviewer sometimes seems pre-occupied with Kate's sensuality,
he does exhibit some knowledge of Kate's music, and seems to have 
considerable respect for it. He also manages to elicit some fascinating
comments on how she portrays the characters in her songs.
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           "PARANOIA AND PASSION OF THE KATE INSIDE"
           "Kate Bush talks to Colin Irwin in Munich"

     Corridors.  Bland antiseptic corridors leading nowhere and lasting
forever. An occasional flight of stairs to negotiate; the odd babble of
German chatter that passes without interest or acknowledgement; a dressing
room bearing the name of Loudan Wainwright momentarily raises spirits.
     A multi-coloured sign in bizarre lettering that stinks of the Sixties'
psychodelia smacks you between the eyes, the legend just decipherable as
"Rock-Pop", accompanied by a little arrow that suggests that you're getting
warm.
     More corridors, steps, signs and then the final triumphant indication
of imminent victory. _The Voice_.
     It shrieks high above the cacophany of silence, like a crazed cockerel
on a berzerk roller-coaster. Initially wild and formless, it quickly begins
to bear shape and recognition as we approach it with increasing urgency.
     "Whenshewuz...biew-tee-foool...shesy-yned the lett-tah...
MMMAAWW-YOOORS BABOOSHKABABOOSHKABASBOOSHKAYAYA-AH..." diddle-dee-dum bang
crash...
"BABOOSHKABABOOSHKABABOOSHKA."
     Suppressing lust, cameramen zoom in and out, caught up in the mania of
the music. Official-looking geezers grip clip-boards which threaten to snap
in two under the ferosity of the clasp, and assorted clusters of people
hover in the background solicitiusly pretending not to be impressed or to
notice, but still helpless to prevent jaws dropping open with neither
dignity nor discretion.
     Kate looks stunning. She wears scarlet trousers that flair absurdly
from the thighs down, but sink their teeth into her buttocks with obscene
determination. The matching tee-shirt is breathtakingly skimpy and looks
like it's been painted on her.
     She clutches a double bass, her body contorting around it in a
transfixing demonstration of mime as Babooshka's drama of love, suspicion,
trial and ultimate faithlessness unfolds.
     The double-bass is alternately the object of her lust and her fury;
she wraps herself around it, she grinds against it, she beats the hell out
of it, she wrings its neck, she claws it, she slithers down its neck, she
blows in its ear.
     Her face pouts and spits and leers and jeers and dreams and schemes
and _ravishes_; and all the while _that_ bottom jerks and thrusts from one
end of the studio to the other.
     It's the most erotic thing I ever saw.


     A wierd month for Kate...a crucial one for EMI. The new album, "Never
For Ever", took six months to record. It was completed three months ago,
but EMI decided to hold back on its issue because of other major issues
around the same time. The one genuine new superstar in the team, it was
essential this one made a huge splash.
     In keeping with the Bush/EMI policy of slow careful build-up -just
like Liverpool and equally effective- a concerted plan of campaign has been
prepared for its launch.
     A series of personal appearances, various interviews, radio station
spots, and thorough advertising have been arranged; and flying to Munich to
mime two numbers for "Rock-Pop" on German television is merely one more
brick in a wide-reaching wall.
     Kate embraces it all with a smile and a giggle. I refuse to believe
that anyone _enjoys_ being the object of mass marketing, but she at least
acknowledges its necessity, maintains firm control over its operation, and
accepts its demands with professionalism and good grace.
     Various German EMI representatives are in Munich to welcome her and
she greets them all with a big hug like they're favourite cousins, a brief
flurry of reminicences over the last time Kate was in Munich during her
concert tour.
     "Oh hello, nice to see you," she hails the Melody Maker expansively,
as the first rehersal concludes in a welter of satisfied nods from
technicians. A bit of chit-chat, a lot of nervous giggling from all
parties, and then: "Oh God, I've got to go and have a shower. I feel all
sort of...you know." Somehow its hard not to be captivated.
     And yet there are extraordinary paradoxes about her. There can be no
greater dichotomy between a public image and the art inside it. She's
forever portrayed as a nice middle-class kid who can't believe her own
luck. A renegade from St. Trinians, likeably naive, tolerably favoured and
just a shade flippant, gushing "amazin'" and "incredible" from poll award
to poll award.
     Glamorous but not intimidating, the media instantly moulding her into
a wrapping of sweetness, purity and light. Earmarked for a path of pop
records, and television spots into the elite of artists who appear on each
other's TV series; and ultimately becoming the family entertainer destined
to end up in pantomimes and seaside caberet.
     I could never equate the image with the music. The most indifferent
glimpse beyond the image of "Wuthering Heights" reveals a rampantly
independant spirit.
     I mean, no sweet flippant family entertainer ever write a song as
sexually explicit as "Feel It". No surrogate Olivia Newton-John ever
tackled a subject like incest ("The Kick Inside"). No cosseted
girl-next-door would ever dare conduct a fantasy around a saxaphone
("Saxaphone Song")


     The lights suddenly pick out Kate on the other side of the studio,
standing perfectly still, the bass standing phallically before her, her
eyes wide and manic, _staring_ at the camera.
     The intro to "Babooshka", the bottom portrudes, and she's away,
jumping and thrusting, and utterly _living_ the part. A bunch of
photographers have been allowed in to the studio, and push and jostle each
other for the best views.
     As the song ends, several kids chase her for an autograph, but she's
already gone, flitting away on her broomstick, or does she merely turn into
a pumpkin?
     Kate re-emerges, totally unrecognized, sitting alone at the side,
observing, waiting for her next party-piece. She's dressed as a haggard
washer-woman in dowdy clothes and headscarf.
     It's a routine she's never tried before and she's been nervous about
it all day. The song is "Army Dreamers", a track from "Never For Ever" and
the next single, a simple but melancholy little song in which Kate appears
as a weary mother reflecting on the death of her son, a soldier killed on
duty.
     "Should have been a rock star...But he didn't have the money for a
guitar"...three soldiers dressed in British army camoflage uniforms appear,
one carrying a mandolin, one a Tommy gun (ed. note- played by Paddy Bush
and Del Palmer respectively), another in the role of a sergent barking
orders.
     "Should have been a politician...But he never had a proper
education"...Kate shrivals and cringes behind the soldiers, her face
crumpled and distraught. The soldiers march and prowl and stand at
attention.
     "Should have been a father...But he didn't even make it to his
twenties"...the song is all the more striking for the pretty tune, and the
genteel structure, the innocence of the lyric.
     It end with the three soldiers cowering in a heap, Kate spreadeagled
protectively above them. Purely as a piece of theater it's brilliant.
"Rock-Pop" has never seen anything like it that's for sure.
     Kate has an enormous number of relatives in Ireland, and she's fearful
of the Irish reaction to "Army Dreamers". Ireland isn't mentioned in the
song, and she inserted a reference to BFPO to divert attention; but let's
face it, the song's a contemporary one with it's mention of rock 'n' roll,
and there ain't too many other places a young soldier is gonna get killed
in action right now.
     "It's the first song I've ever written in the studio," she says when I
ask her about it. "It's not specifically about Ireland, it's just putting
the case of a mother in these circumstances, how incredibly sad it is for
her. How she feels she should have been able to prevent it. If she'd bought
him a guitar when he asked for one.
     "Have you heard Roy's new album?" she says suddenly. Er Roy? Oh Roy
Harper, of course. They appear on each other's albums. He gets a dedication
on the sleeve of "Never For Ever"- "Special thanks to Roy Harper for
holding on to the poet in his music".
     No, Kate, I haven't heard the album. "You should." Adrian Boot's heard
it, took the sleeve photograph. "Actually" says Kate sweetly, "I didn't
like the sleeve." Adrian looks hurt. "The photograph was great, I just
didn't like the sleeve" she reassures him.
     A flood of chatter follows. Did I know Dave & Toni Arthur/What are the
Dransfields doing now/Do I like the Bothy Band? "I've a very strong folk
music influence" she says.
     "First songs I ever sung were dirty sea shanties. I'm very proud of
it, I can't think of a nicer influence. Traditional music says a great deal
about the country, English folk music is a lot different to Irish folk
music, not only musically, but lyrically. I mean, that song 'She Moves
Through The Fair' it sums up the Irish spirit. It's incredible, so
_moving_.
     Certainly her fascination for traditional ballads is the key to her
more lurid story-lines. "The Kick Inside" was inspired by the richly
colourful ballad "Lucy Wan", in which a brother murders his sister when she
becomes pregnant by him (though there are numerous variations). Kate's
version has the sister committing suicide.
     "Babooshka" is similarly based on a song called "Sovay Sovay". I tell
her I'll listen to Roy Harper's album if she'll listen to an album called
"Carolanne" by Carol Pegg, which includes a similar embellishment on "Lucy
Wan".
     My favourite track on the album is "The Wedding List". "Oh really?"
she says bubbling, the little kid who's been given a puppy for Christmas.
     "That was based on a film, a Jeanne Moreau film I once saw on the
telly, when the bride's husband was killed and she sought revenge for those
responsible". She spends the next 15 minutes relating the plot of the film,
ending in a breathless flourish. "It was an _amazing film_. Can't remember
what it was called though."
     Films and fiction, in fact, count for a prominent chunck of her
inspiration. And whatever you feel about the histrionics and the wayward
vocalising, you've got to concede that in a chart overflowing with grey
music and tepid lyrics, the success of a colourful number like "Babooshka"
for example, has to be healthy.
     She's reticent to agree..."Well, it does always amaze me how many
songs get in the charts that are- I won't say _rubbish_ because they're
not- but the sort of songs that so many people could write.
     "I often find myself inspired by unusual, distorted, wierd subjects,
as opposed to things that are straightforward. It's a reflection of me, my
liking for wierdness."
     They don't come any wierder than "The Infant Kiss". This, she explains
patiently, was based on a film, "The Innocents", which had itself come out
of the Henry James book, "The Turn Of The Screw". A governess goes to stay
with a man to look after his two children, who are possessed by the spirits
of people who lived there before.
     "Some people might think it's a song about...what's the word when
older women fancy little boys?" Paedophilia? "Well, it's not actually that,
and it would worry me if people mixed it up with that because that's
exactly what worries her so much. I find that distortion very fascinating
and quite sad. And _frightening_. The thought of someone old and evil being
inside a young and pure shell, it's freaky."
     Playing at the amateur psychiatrist, I contemplate whether she writes
songs from fiction out of fear about exposing too much of _herself_.
     "Whenever I base something on a book or a film I don't take a direct
view, I don't _steal_ it. I'll put it through my personal experiences, and
in some cases it becomes a very strange mixture of complete fiction and
very, very personal fears within me.
     ""The Infant Kiss' had to be done on a very intimate basis, it had to
be a woman singing about her own fear, because it makes her so much more
vulnerable. If it had just been on observation saying 'She's really
frightened, she's worried'; you could never really tell what she was
fealing. So I put it as coming through myself.
     "I'm not actually thinking of myself falling in love with the little
boy, I was putting myself in her place. Feeling what I do for children- I
love children- and then suddenly seeing something in their eyes you don't
want to see.
     "It's like when a tiny kid turns round and says to you 'You're a
bastard' or 'Fuck off', it's instinctive to feel repulsed by it. I can put
that experience into a different situation, otherwise I'd be writing and
singing about situations I've never experienced, and in order to be
convincing you have to have a certain amount of knowledge and conviction.
It's a strange mixture, I know, but I rarely write purely personal songs
from experience."
     Exactly.
     "I have done it. On the other albums more than this one. But I often
wonder how valid it is to write a song purely about oneself. I worry about
being too indulgent and there is the thing about giving too much away.
     "It doesn't worry me giving it to the public because I think the
public understand how personal it is, but when you write a song for an
album it's up for everyone to pull apart. 'Full House' was probably quite
autobiographical you know, talking about how hard I find it to cope with
all the feelings I get, from paranoia, pressure, anger, that sort of thing.
     "My feelings are in there, but they're probably disguised. I've never
really enjoyed artists who indulge in personal writing. People like Leonard
Cohen. I _admire_ him, but I just can't stand _listening_ to him. At the
end of the album you feel so depressed."
     I tell her about Jackson Browne, whose wife committed suicide while he
was recording "The Pretender". She's agog.
     "Well I guess when you have something so extreme happen in your life
you have to write about it. That's probably another reason why I tend to
put my personal feelings into another situation because you can come up
with so much variance. I've never actually shot anyone, but in a song I can
do it, and in some ways it's much more exciting, more symbolic."
     But you really live out your roles and fantasies. Playing the mother
in "Army Dreamers".
     "Yeah, I seem to link on to mothers rather well. As I've grown up a
bit I've become very aware of observing my own mother trying to observe me.
It's fascinating. When I was a kid I never really thought about her, about
how she ticks.
     "But I can be more objective now and I find it fascinating about
mothers, that there's something in there, a king of maternal passion which
is there all the time, even when they're talking about cheese sandwiches.
Sometimes it can be very possessive, sometimes it's very real."
     Kate doesn't know when she'll be touring again. She enjoyed her one
tour, and it gave her a thrill to choke the critics who'd suggested she'd
be a disaster on stage, that she couldn't sing live. But it takes six
months out of a year to rehearse and prepare for a tour the way she wants
to do it, and will also cost her enormous amounts of money to stage.
     "Not that I mind losing money on a tour- there are so many benefits
from it- as long as we don't go bankrupt. We do want to tour again, we
_will_ tour again, because there are so many things we still want to do on
stage, but we'll have to think about it very carefully because it will stop
me doing a lot of other things."
     On the plane back to London the next day I ask her about Peter
Gabriel. They did, after all, record together on "Games Without Frontiers"
and I thought I'd detected a Gabriel influence on "Never For Ever". I ask
about Peter Gabriel and she talks about Pink Floyd.
     "That last album of his was fantastic, but I don't know if it was a
direct influence on me. He may have opened up bits in me I hadn't thought
of, but a more direct influence was 'The Wall'.
     "It got to the point when I heard it I thought there's no point in
writing songs any more because they'd said it all. You know, when something
really gets you, it hits your creative centre and stops you creating....
and after a couple of weeks I realized that he hadn't done _everything_,
there was lots he hadn't done.
     "And after that it became an inspiration. 'Breathing' was definitely
inspired by the whole vibe I got from hearing that whole album, especially
the third side. There's something about Floyd that's pretty atomic anyway."


     We part at Heathrow, she to the next leg of the "Never For Ever"
promotion campaign. There's a day of interviews ahead; personal appearances
at record shops in Glasgow, Manchester, and London; various radio station
interviews and a visit to a dealers party in Birmingham, where she will
personally meet the EMI employees who'll be flogging her new album. They in
turn cream themselves stupid and get their photographs taken with the great
lady.
     It's only rock 'n' roll but you have to know how to sell it.

END OF INTERVIEW

MarK T. Ganzer
Internet: ganzer@trout.nosc.mil  
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