MuchMusic interview 1

[rhill@pnet01.cts.com (Ronald Hill)]

    72. The New Music (Much Music): interview conducted by Daniel Richler for
Canadian TV in Kate's dance studio on March 15, 1985.
     One of the best of all Kate Bush videotaped interviews, though it is
rather brief. Richler, like most of the Canadian interviewers, has done
considerable homework and shows evident respect for his subject. Kate responds
enthusiastically and informatively. This clip shows a view of Kate's own
dance-practice studio, and a shot of a painting which Kate keeps on her wall,
which she identifies as The Hogsmill Ophelia. 

[Transcribed by Ronald Hill, above note by IED.  Some of this interview was
also used later in the The Story So Far special.  I am not sure if this is the
complete interview, as I have two different versions and don't know if there
is a longer, complete version.  Any further information is appreciated]

        A: Kate Bush has not released a record in over two years, but a new
one is scheduled for this summer, and Kate was in the middle of recording it
when we met her in her dance studio in London.

        K: They're not a title yet, that's always one of the last things to
happen, if not the last thing.  And really I think most of the songs are about
love.  I was feeling very happy when I wrote most of these songs and I wanted
to try to get a positive attitude as apposed to the darker, anguished attitude
that was a part of some of the tracks on the last album. 

        I: Those earlier songs, Breathing and the Army Dreamers had what you
might call a political conscious.  Now that so many groups are doing political
musics like the Ethiopia relief fund music and that sort of thing, is your new
album going to contain something similar? 

        K: No. No I don't think actually there are any tracks that are
political as such.  And I've never felt I've written from a political point of
view, it's always been an emotional point of view that just happens to perhaps
be a political situation.  I mean war is an extremely emotional situation,
especially if you're going to be blown up.  You know, I think with the whole
thing of nuclear war people are really terrified and increasingly so the more
we hear in the media all the time about it.  And I think writers always do
have a conscious about the things that scare them.  They want to write about
them to relieve themselves. 

[Part of Breathing is played]



[Second tape]


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

        I: You had been popularly associated with a very sweet voice, and what
you were doing in some places on The Dreaming was making very guttural sounds
- hoarse and raw.  In a way what David Bowie did on recently on Blue Jean,
where he deliberately made his voice crack and tear.

        K: Yes, I find that much more interesting.  The first two albums, my
voice really wasn't capable of doing that and I think my writing and my voice
have continually tried to get better to be able to do something that I
actually like.  And it's very frustrating when you are actually writing songs
and singing them and you're not actually enjoying what's coming back.  So
hopefully, you know, it will become more pleasurable for me, the actual
process, because it is quite painful, listening to things awful, you really
want them to sound good. 

[Part of Sat in Your Lap is played]

[In this tape the above Breathing quote is repeated]

        I: I was reminded by this painting in the corner hear, which is sort
of a satire of a pre-Raphaelite painting, and I always thought those victorian
painters, the pre-Raphaelite's, were an influence on the texture of your
songwriting. 

        K: Yes.  Yes, I think it was particularly in my very early teens.  I
was very enchanted by the whole romance of it, yes.  They found their way into
songs, the imagery.  I think that's what happens, something attracts you
because of the imagery and you digest it and it come out in a song.  I think
that's how artists work, they're like magpies who are picking out little bits
of gold and storing them away.

[Part of Running Up That Hill is played]








UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd ucsd nosc}!crash!pnet01!rhill
ARPA: crash!pnet01!rhill@nosc.mil
INET: rhill@pnet01.cts.com