Happy interview

[katefans@chinet.chi.il.us (Chris Williams)]

This is a re-edited repost
--------------------------

Vickie here.

 Once, a long time ago in a city far, far away, I had a nightmare.
I dreamed I interviewed one of my favorite musicians live on the
air. At the outset, it seemed as if this would be an interview 
made in heaven. This musician made music and wrote lyrics that
moved me very deeply. I had listened to her four albums repeatedly
and was very familiar with them. I had become friends with her and
we had had many long interesting conversations. We discovered that
we actually had quite a bit in common, such as a passion for the music
of Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel, whose music had helped us cope with
emotionally and mentally troubled pasts. I was fascinated with her and
she liked me very much. My listeners had been hearing her music on
a regular basis for months and they were very curious about this woman
from Albany. All in all, it should have been the best interview anyone
could possibly imagine. The nightmare began when I failed to get any
sleep the night before the interview. I had been up since Friday morning
and by the time my Saturday night program began I was getting hazy and
stupid. I forgot the list of questions I'd prepared, but didn't really
worry about it. After all, when talking with her on the phone it was never
any problem to come up with questions or comments and have a great
conversation. When the interview started my mind went totally blank though.
I sputtered, made inane comments, asked silly and stupid questions, didn't
follow up on really interesting threads and in general, botched it badly.
Happy was truly wonderful anyway, very articulate and interesting.
When I sit and make fun of dopes who are interviewing Kate and don't seem 
to have a clue about her, who seem to have left their intelligence and
curiousity at home, I think of myself interviewing Happy and feel a little
kinder toward them. I swore never to interview Happy again and I haven't.
I also swore never to interview anybody else on the air again, though I
didn't keep that promise-I later interviewed Karen Peris of The Innocence
Mission and Betsy Martin of Caterwaul on the air and did fairly OK.

Anyway, even though the entire interview was only a bad dream, the other
day I put some of that interview onto audiotape to transcribe bits of it.
Cringing and feeling ill throughout the process, I managed to sit through
it all and came up with the following edited bits....
            
     --------------------------------------------------------------

             Happy Rhodes interview    January 1, 1989
              
  
On her start and influences:

"I started recording professionally when I was 17 which would have been
5 years ago and I started writing music when I was 14. Started playing
guitar when I was 11.

I was influenced by a lot of classical, specifically...I liked Bach very,
very much. Particularly Wendy Carlos. One of the first albums I was ever
subjected to was when I was 9 years old and it was _Switched On Bach_ by
the then Walter Carlos and I was very much influenced by that. 
Then came Queen, if you can believe that. I was very influenced by their
harmonies. Moved on to Kate Bush. I wasn't introduced to Kate Bush until I
was 16. Then Peter Gabriel, around the same time. Actually I was introduced
to a lot of music much too late. I wish I'd gotten to hear a lot of it much
earlier. I was very..oh gee, I was just very sheltered from a lot of good
music right at the time in my life when I really needed to hear that stuff."

On the making of Vols. I & II:

"They were released in the same year but they were not recorded 
consecutively. Actually, Vol. I and Vol. II, it's the oldest material
that I have released. It's just a compilation of all the things that
I had been recording since I was 17. It didn't get released until I
was oh..maybe 19, so a lot of the music is very old. It's also before I
owned a synthisizer of my own. Most of it is a lot of just acoustic guitar. 
And I've stepped up a lot from there, in terms of instrumentation. I
started using a drum machine and synthisizers and so on. So all I can say
is that stuff is very different because it's a lot older."

On doing everything herself:

"Yeah, on all four of the albums. I did it all. It really wasn't by choice.
In fact I had worked with Kevin at the time that I released Rearmament
and Ecto but he was a solo artist, was doing his own thing so we didn't
work together, I couldn't really depend on anybody, and God knows we didn't
have money to pay studio musicians. If I had it wouldn't have made any
difference because I can't read or write music so I wouldn't have been
able to give them sheets of music to play in the studio. It wound up being
the only way I could do it."

About "Given In":

"I'm sure everyone has noticed at this point that my music tends toward
the dark side. But, now, this is the way that everybody else sees it, I
don't necessarily see it that way. I see it more introspective than dark,
definitely. I don't get depressed when I listen to my music, wheras some
people do. Given In is a bit of a contrast because it's a very positive 
song. See, I have two themes that generally run through my music. One is,
what seems to be depressing, introspective and another that seems to be
loving yourself, that kind of thing. Given In falls under the Loving Your-
self category. Every once in a while I'd bang out what I'm feeling, whether
it's depression, self-pity...any emotion, I'd bang it out in a song, but if
it does tend to run along the lines of depression, I will get to a certain
point, as everybody does, where I have to sooth myself because nobody else
can do that for me, and then _that_ comes out in a song. Given In is one of
those songs. It's just a matter of telling myself...be strong...what you feel
is what you feel...be true to yourself, that kind of thing."

About "Noone Here":

"I was driving home one morning, it was about 5 o'clock in the morning
and the sun was rising. I felt particularly down...Nooo, really???...yes
I felt particularly down at the time. It was so long ago that I don't
remember why, but it doesn't matter. I felt very lonely and I didn't
like that feeling. And also, I love cats, I adore cats, I have three now,
and at that time I wasn't allowed to have cats. There seems to be a void
in my life when that rule is placed on me. So I felt particularly lonely
and I started writing this song about the lonely feelings I had and again
I got to that point where I really had to do something about it for myself.
This is a great song for me because it describes my sun rising still, even
though there's no one here. It's a funny thing, I think every single human
being has their own guardian angel but what you perceive as being your 
guardian angel is different for every individual. I see my guardian angel
as being me, or an aspect of my personality, so in times of dire need, when
I'm emotionally distraught, which is not that often, don't get me wrong,
yuk yuk, I basically have learned to turn to myself because no one can
console me or keep me company, as well as I can. That's not to say I shut
other people out, but I think that pretty much runs true with everyone.
So that's what that song's all about"

About "To The Funnyfarm":

We joke about making ashtrays..."Isn't that what they do in padded rooms
these days? I don't know myself. (laughs) Yeah that was a fun song. 
No, actually, that song I wrote when I was very, very young. The reason I
wrote that was because I was feeling...uh...my family had been supressing my 
creativity. Purposely, because, I don't know...it's rough. I'm an artist and
I knew I was an artist when I was very young. Usually people will not delve 
into artistic ventures until they're older, until they're sure, after they've
gone to college, this 'n' that. I never went to college. I didn't have to.
I knew when I was 6 years old what I'd be doing. And this is very disarming
for the parent, because their goals are for the child to go to college and
become a secretary or a doctor or something of this kind. I wasn't following
in those footsteps and so I was kind of making everybody involved a little
uneasy. Therefore, growing up, I got a lot of pressure to....'music? yeah
that's nice...it's a good hobby but, you know, do something more practical'
and it made me feel like I was crazy because I was this emotional, moody
person who liked to do nothing but write songs. I really didn't care much
for friends or parties or anything like that, I just really liked music
and I think everyone around me saw that as being just slightly strange.
So I wrote "To the Funnyfarm" because I started seeing myself that way
after a while."

On her dark songs and being prolific:

"I was more prolific when I was younger than I am now. I think it's a 
little strange but I think disaster and tragedy tend to attract people
for some reason. When I was younger I found myself being more prolific 
when I focused on the tragedy of my life rather than the happiness in
my life. That's why the songs come out sounding so dark and cynical.
Now, there was as much good in my life as there was bad, but like I said,
the good could not move me to write a song. The bad always could, so that's
why I seemed to be so prolific then as opposed to now. I'm still prolific,
but not so much so. Now I spread my creative energy out in all kinds of
areas because my attitudes have changed slightly. I'm still the same 
person, I still feel those same things but at least I can come at them
from a different perspective now."

About "Ecto" (the song):

"Ecto refers to something along the lines of an out-of-the-body experience.
I don't want to mislead anybody because it's not something I've had the
opportunity to experience yet, but one of my beliefs, we all have our own
individual beliefs, so I don't impose this on anybody, but one of my 
personal beliefs is that my consiousness goes on and I think I just wanted
to express that in a song, that no matter what happens it _really_ doesn't
matter, 'cause my consiousness goes on and I may choose to stick around
and I may choose not to stick around but I just had to reaffirm that in
a song I guess. Also it's a little eerie sounding...I like eerie things"

On "Fame & Fortune":

I had asked her what her feelings were concerning Kansas City (getting
lots of airplay on my show and selling tapes) and her plans for the future
such as "making mega-bucks" & such (it was a joke!)

"I feel great about what's happening in Kansas City because my immediate
goal is to express myself. Obviously that's happened successfully.
Everyone can interpret what I say in their own way, that is another one
of my immediate goals. An ultimate goal, a long-term goal would be...yes,
to be heard on many levels. I'd like to spread to the masses and Kansas City
is an excellent start as far as I'm concerned. I do want to make "mega bucks"
and for very specific reasons. There are a lot of things that I've wanted to
do in my life that I cannot do unless I'm in the power to do them, unless
I'm in some type of powerful position to do them. I'll clarify that. I want
to give money away. I really, really want to do that. I'm not a philanthro-
pist (sp?) or anything but I really want to support animal rights groups,
I want to support Amnesty groups. All these things...I'm very touched by
people reaching out. It's one of the things I want to do. Unfortunately,
in today's society money seems to be the most immediate way of reaching
out and helping. Now, I don't like that fact, I don't necessarily believe
in that but that's the way it seems to be going these days. And if that's
the case, fine, I'll play by that. Now, that's not the only reason I'm
into music, obviously. Music is me, it's what I do. If I didn't make any
money at it I'd still be doing it but it really is a good tool for me to
be able to help on a large scale."

     --------------------------------------------------------------

Most of the rest of the interview had to do with what Happy was doing 
at that time. She and Kevin had merged musically and became the duo
Bartlett/Rhodes. They were playing live around Albany (All-bany, if you
please, she had teased me about my midwestern pronunciation :-) and
were very successful as a duo, but neither felt totally satisfied and
so eventually decided to become solo artists again. We spent quite a bit
of time talking about Bartlett/Rhodes until it was time to end my show.


Vickie (one of Vickie'n'Chris)