Georgia Straight INterview

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

Top 40 Success At Last 
Kate Bush Ascends U.S. Hill

>From Billboard, Dec. 14 1985

By Kathy Gillis

        NEW YORK With the single "Running Up That Hill" and the album "Hounds
Of Love" now in the top 40 of their respective charts, Kate Bush has leapt
into a far brighter spotlight than she's ever been under in this country. 
        But Bush's success here has hardly been achieved overnight.  Bush
signed with EMI in England in 1976 and released a number of albums there from
1978 through this year's "Hounds Of Love."  While not all her recordings were
released domestically by EMI America, critical acclaim slowly built up in this
country as well. 
        Still, Bush hadn't been to the States since a 1979 appearance on
"Saturday Night Love [Live]."  With the current success of the album, she's on
a promotional tour which will take her to Canada as well as New York.  
        "I really had no reason to come here to promote a record until now,"
she says.  "Obviously promotion is a helpful thing, but unless the music is
being picked up by people, there's nothing I can do.  In a way my time is
wasted.  I'd rather be working on the next album at home." 
        Since she's acting as her own manager, Bush can implement that
decision as well as her decision not to tour.  She hasn't been on the road
since she released her second album in England.
        "I'm not planning a tour," she says.  "It's an incredible commitment. 
Once you're committed, you're really talking about  a year's worth of effort.
        "Also, so many other things that I want to do wouldn't get done.  Now
that I'm at the end of this album, there are other things I'd like to do, like
getting to another album and maybe experimenting with some visual ideas." 
        Bush has been more than experimenting with visual presentations during
most of her career.  In addition to working on her own videos, she studied
dance with mime artist Lindsay Kemp. 
        "To see a group of people working to music without saying anything I
found incredibly moving and very, very interesting," she says.  "I thought
that if [movement] was combined with music, it could be a very interesting way
of visually expressing yourself.  It was through [this] that I decided to take
up dancing." 
Bush has choreographed her own videos from the start, and has enjoyed a
growing involvement in other aspects of video production, from working on
storyboards to having a hand in editing.
        She has been her own producer for the past few albums, and completed
construction of her own studio in England before recording "Hounds Of Love." 
As yet unnamed, the studio is a luxury she's not anxious to share.  Nor does
she wish to share her production skills.
        "When I'm working on my own things," she says, "I summon up a kind of
confidence from somewhere that in a way is quite blind and has faith in the
thing turning out in the end.  I don't get very nervous about it.  But I think
working on other people's material, I'd have to feel certain that I could help
or I'd just be so nervous, I could just ruin it for them.  If I don't have
enough confidence in something, my nerves really do get in the way."
        Bush suggests that a number of elements in her style have flourished
on "Hounds Of Love," especially her rhythmic sense.  "Consistency of rhythm is
what's happening on this album.  Rhythm has always attracted me, but it has
taken me time to understand it and come to terms with it in music."
 

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