Thomas Dolby interview, as promised!

[jsd%UMASS.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan S. Drukman)]

                      THOMAS DOLBY INTERVIEW

This interview was broadcast on the syndicated show Rock Over
London.  The interviewer is Paul Sexton.  I don't know the exact
date, but it should be easy to figure out given that Thomas is
talking about the "new" album _Flat Earth_ just being released.
Edited and so on by Jon Drukman.

ROL: Today's Rock Over London guest is Thomas Dolby.  Tell me what
you've been up to lately.

TD: Well, I've just finished working on my second album, and I've
been working on some videos for it because I'm going on tour in
the New Year starting in the UK for about 6 weeks and Europe... a
couple of months in the States, Canada, Japan and Australia.

ROL: Tell me about the new album - what's the title, first of all?

TD: Well, it's called _The Flat Earth_ - the thing is, it's very
different from my first album; there's no synthesizers on it, to
speak of whatsoever which is going to surprise a lot of people, I
think.  It's a very acoustic sounding album.

ROL: Are you conscious of the kind of "Mad Professor" type image
that's seemed to be around you for a while - is that something
that you developed yourself?

TD: It's just a side of my personality, you know.  It's the
easiest kind of finger to put on the way that I work in the studio
and the way I am on stage and so on.  It hurts me a little bit
when people write me off because that's all they see - it's that
sort of initial image thing - and don't look any further into the
music.  I think that anybody who takes the care and the time to
get into the music will see that it's just fun and it's not a
gimmick or anything like that.

ROL: Let's talk about _She Blinded Me With Science_ for a bit.
How on earth did you come to make a record with Magnus Pyke?

TD: I was in the studio doing the vocals, and I was putting in
some kind of asides, and I started getting into the sort of
professorial approach and the engineer said to me "You sound just
like Magnus Pyke."
     And I said "Well, that's a good idea - let's get him!"
     So oddly enough, I just phoned up Thames TV reception and
said "I'm trying to locate Dr. Pyke." and they put me on to some
extension or other and sure enough, there he was, cos he was doing
something at the time and he said sure he'd like to come down and
do it.
     It was very odd, because we had to get a system of hand
signals together in the studio - one hand up meant "Science!" and
two hands up meant "She blinded me with science!" and he started
off doing it a little bit wrong - he was going "She blinded me...
with science?"   And I said, "No no, Dr. Pyke, it's not quite the
right intonation - you're not asking a question, you're making a
statement."
     And he said, "Yes, but as a known scientist, it would be a
bit surprising if the girl blinded _me_ with science!"
     And I said, "Please, just do it." and he said "righto,
righto." and that's what we used on the twelve inch!

ROL: What was he like?  Was he good about it?  Did he know what
was going on?

TD:  I don't think he knew what was going on, no, anymore than I
would have done if I had gone on the scientific programme!

ROL: All right Thomas, well we look forward to hearing the album
and thanks for coming in.

END OF INTERVIEW