1985 Convention Jay and Pad interview

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

John and Paddy Bush Interview
-----------------------------
>From the 1985 Kate Bush Convention
November 30, 1985

[Transcribed by Ron Hill.  Unfortunately the microphones were not too loud so
much of the interview was inaudible.]

        DAVE CROSS: Few people know Kate as well as her immediate family,
which I'm sure you've realized.  So we're going to have two interviewees and
two interviewers, but only two people on stage.  Would you please welcome, to
interview each other, John and Paddy Bush. 
[Applause]
        PADDY: Hi everybody!
[Applause]
        PADDY: Hello, everybody can you hear me OK now? 
        JOHN: [Inaudible] 
        PADDY: Yeah, I am Kate Bush Fan, I have everything she does. 
[Applause] But I'm not on the collecting side - I haven't got any Kate Bush
T-Shirts or [inaudible].  Purely into the music.  Question number 2...
        AUDIENCE: Louder. 
        PADDY: [Shoats] Question number two!!  It says, John in particular,
seems to have been closely involved musicly - more closely [laugher] involved
musically with Hounds Of Love then previous albums.  Is there any particular
reason for this? 
        JOHN: Well, I think it's the new studio, because having the studio at
home gives a very relaxed feeling to the work.  So I mean there are a number
of other reasons, really the creative ones and there were some gaps in there
and I cleaned them up a bit. 
        PADDY: Right.  And in fact this particular album has shown a slight
trend toward using this vocal voice with music as well as the song's voice and
[microphone screeches loudly, blasting your transcriber's ears in the
headphones.  The audience laughs.  Double thumping sound.]  And so quite a lot
of us were involved in an audio kind of way.  We're asked to say things,
things are put on to message machines - telephone answering machines and stuff
like this.  We're asked to phone people up and say silly things like "good
morning, dear this is early morning call."  All this kind of stuff.  So
vocally, quite a lot of it's [??? inaudible] and Jay in particular and we're
very honour to have him on here [??? Inaudible]
        JOHN: [Inaudible]
        PADDY: Do you like it, by the way? 
[Applause]
        PADDY: It says question number 3.  [??? Have the honour..]
        JOHN: How far does the material on Hounds Of Love reflect highly
special music interests of Kate, such as traditional music and such?  Very
much I'd say...
        PADDY: Yes, definitely. 
        JOHN: Particulary again the second side [??? inaudible] but certainly
Celtic music is the biggest thing.  You know, it runs all the way though. 
Even though that's not the specific [??? inaudible]
        PADDY: Yes. [??? inaudible]  Yesterday, I was spoken to some two or
three people there, and we were talking about the Jig Of Life and they were
saying, to them, The Jig Of Life sounded as though it came from Breton [???
spelling]  and to them it sounded exactly like Breton music.  And I think the
country influence  is very [??? slight].  Would you like to know where the
idea for The Jig Of Life came from? 
        [Audience mumbles "Yeah"]
        PADDY: Well that was [??? Baton's fire dance] that came from northern
Italy.  And there's a rhythm that they use, which they play all day long,
which is the rhythm that goes underneath the Jig Of Life.  And the rhythm goes
[thumps out rhythm]  And these people are in a little village in northern
Greece, they're all Christian people.  They start dancing at about nine
o'clock in the morning to this rhythm and [??? inaudible].  And they dance all
afternoon and all evening and they're grown up people, not [??? English] but
grown up [??? huts].  And they carry these saintly paintings on their [???
backs].  And they sorta cuddle these things, and dance all afternoon, right
into the evening.  And at the very end of the night they lay a bonfire out on
the ground and all the people in the village dance on top of these flames and
nobody catches fire, except for visitors.  Cause actually they have visitors
to this village and they get very moved and carried away by the music and feel
inspired to jump onto the flames.  And inevitably they burst into flames and
instantly combust, much to everybodies... [laugher] 
        JOHN:  I think maybe what's the most interesting thing about that
second side, where there is traditional music, is I think it's the first sort
of integration of folk music into rock music that I've heard for a while.  A
few people have tried it in the last ten years, but it hasn't had the same
dynamic as that. 
        PADDY: Would you agree? 
        [Applause.  A voice that sounds suspiciously like IED's suggests
"Night Of The Swallow."] 
        JOHN: Next question.  Do you want this question? 
        PADDY: No. 
        JOHN: Alright sir.  [Laughter]  To what extent could it be said that
Kate's music is a collective family effort?  Do both of you make your own
creative contributions, IE Paddy's music on Jig Of Life, John lyrics on the
same song?  I don't... maybe we've answered that a bit.  But, yes it is, I
mean when you talk about things together, there's no really particular [???
target for it], but if somebodies just saying, "why don't you write a [???
book] about a piece of music," it gets mentioned, it gets listened to, it gets
looked at.  And that's part of the process which adds to writing songs.  But
something specific, no.  No, it's just a general sort of garden really of
information.  And [??? inaudible] if somebody finds a particular [??? socket],
then [??? inaudible] It hasn't actually come from oneself.  And it's just
keeping your ears open.  [??? Inaudible] then hopefully it gets recycled into
[??? inaudible].
        PADDY: Yeah, that's perfectly true.  We all do this.  We're often
asked to contribute, taking from ourselves.  You know, "have you got anything
that may fit this particular idea."  And then, on the other hand we can often
asked to do specific things like to say very silly words and make very silly
sounds. [??? inaudible]  
        JAY: The lyrics on Jig Of Life are interesting because originally it
was going to be Edna O'brien  [??? Spelling?] .  But she wasn't available. 
And then when I was asked to do it, I thought I was going to have to pretend
to be Edna O'Brien. [laughter] I wrote a very specific piece of poetry which
is based mainly on W.B. Yates, for influence, so that it could be read with an
Irish accent.  It ended up though by just being read by a sorta Irish accent
on a normal voice, although originally it was just going to be my voice
speeded up, sounding like an Irish woman. [Laugher]  So all that went into the
lyrics coming out in that [??? little] way.  The lyrics and the poetry. 
Question six.   PADDY: At what stage did we realize that Kate had a very
special musical talent?  That's easy. 
        JAY: Last week.  [Laughter] 
        PADDY: [inaudible] a couple of days ago, seemed to be talented. 
        JAY: A very hard one, that. 
        PADDY: From the word go, really. 
        JAY: Yeah, she started playing the piano when she was eleven, I mean
teaching herself.
        PADDY: Ten. 
        JAY: Ten.  [Laughter] And then the songs started to come a little bit
after that. 
        PADDY: Ten and a half.  [Lots of Laughter] 
        JAY: [??? Wishful percussions] more than anything else.  I suppose
around fourteen or fifteen they started to get some body behind them and then
it looked as though something was going to happen.  But it really until she'd
actually made the first album that it became very clear.  
        PADDY: But we knew all along.  [Laughter]  Here's a good one. It says
do we have any special memories of early performances in folk clubs or of the
KT Bush band - it must have been 1977.  And what songs were sung, standards or
Kate's own? 
        JAY: Traditional.  I mean I don't think... I mean Kate's never
preformed in folk clubs.  She certainly used to sing along with various folk
bands that we had.  Then she was very small so she couldn't have preformed
anyway.  And most of the songs she learned were Victorian sea shanties which
were pretty dirty songs.  [Laughter]  So I suppose, in a sense that is where
it started.  [Laugher.]  [??? Walking up here] and sing a dirty song.  She's
not worked in any traditional folk [??? styles] it's really just what she
listened to as a child. 
        PADDY: KT Bush band performances in '77.  They were really quite
interesting.  They all took place in a pub in Lewisham.  The idea was to give
Kate a little bit a practice of preforming.  She had a contract with EMI and
it was pretty obvious that the album was going to come out at some time.  And
it was [??? inaudible] be an experience of directly singing to a group of
people.  And so she thought maybe it would be interesting to  [??? impression]
  There was this place in Lewisham, it was called The Rose Of Lee, it doesn't
exist anymore.  The first night that we turned up, there were four people
there.  And it really hotted out about ten thirty, another two people came in
[laughter] - Jay and my father.  [More laughter] Really, really marvelous. 
And then the next week it was a bit better, it was about... about twelve
people there.  The songs being sung were, they were mainly standards,
actually.  Tracks Of My Tears, [??? inaudible]  But then in about three weeks
[??? inaudible] the word started getting around and the club became more and
more and more packed.  And I think maybe about the fifth or six week [???
inaudible] you couldn't get in.  And this was all pre-... before the album was
released or anybody knew anything about Kate, it was just the name of a group.
 [Laughter]  I think about the fifth or six performance [??? inaudible] that
night... The night she first did James And The Cold Gun...
        JOHN: Yeah. 
        PADDY: ... in fact, that was really good.  I working the lights
[laughter] and Lisa [??? invented ] fantasicly.  We were hoping to get these
huge blocks of dry ice which we were going to try out in the night.  They
[just said... stringing in the dust bin ???] pore some hot water on it and
watch what happens.  And we did and it was phenomenal!  [Laughter]  Six foot
of [thrown ???] ice over here.  Kate said ["what are you laughing about" ???] 
[Laughter] Yeah, that was very, very impressive.  I felt, I felt James And The
Cold Gun had a very phenomenal effect on the audience and if anything was
maybe the truest sort of insight into the way it was going to go.  And maybe
the nearest thing there was to anything like the tour before the tour started.

        JOHN: Yeah, certainly... particularly that song was the [??? end of
it] for the performances that came out of the tour. 
        PADDY: Yeah.  Question number eight.  Will Kate tour again or will she
contemplate on other ways of visually presenting her work?
        JOHN: She's bound to tour again, obviously.  But when, I don't know. 
I think she's faced with the situation now in which she can go three ways -
she can do another album, she get a tour together, or she can concentrate on
something more visual, which might be film or, I don't know, maybe an extended
video.  And until promotions for this album are finished, and that means
making another video for every [next single ???] and maybe another video for
every single on [the planet ???] she's not going to really know.  So I suppose
until the spring of next year she wouldn't really have any idea about what
direction she's going to take.  But of course yes, there's bound to be another
tour, but when, who knows? 
        PADDY: Yes, and I promise you we are considering this very, very
seriously.  I mean it's not something that we're going to put off for ever and
ever and ever.  There will be another tour, if not next year, the year after,
and it will be marvelous.  I guarantee you, we're going to be better than the
last one.  [Laughter]  That will be nothing compared to what we're going [to
do ???]
        How did the sleeve for the Running Up That Hill come to be archery
themed and the idea of lyrics on Kate's back?   The archery... Archery is
something that we have been interested in for many years.  It symbolizes the
very basic learning processes, archery.  You aim an arrow at a target and you
let it go and it flies towards the target, it misses the middle and it moves a
little bit to the left and a little bit low, then you know that the next arrow
you're going to shoot has to be a little bit to the right and a bit higher. 
And [??? inaudible] where you find another learning process [??? inaudible]
spending all the English summer walking up and down the hundred yards between
the target and the [??? inaudible].  And  [??? inaudible] a few summers ago
Kate was very active, very good actually, too.  Very good [??? inaudible]
skills.  Excellent [??? inaudible] and it just [??? inaudible].
        JAY: I think there's some levels of archery which now... in terms of a
simple fact, you can see archery as... with the left hand holding the bow, as
the future, and the right hand is pulling this way, it's going backwards, as
the past.  And you're the present.  You could see it as the left hand as the
passive thing, the female, and the right hand as the male.  And it's obviously
[??? inaudible].  And there are a lot of esoteric levels, but I'm sure they're
not very interesting.  Perhaps they threatened to get into the [??? single
fan].
        And the idea of the lyrics written on Kate's back was... we'd been
working on a series for about the last eighteen months and a photograph...
because I never found a photograph and a poem written on the page opposite -
it never seems to work.  You look at the poem and you're having to read the
words and that's more concentrated thing, particularly these days, because
less of us are used to it.  And then you look at the photograph and you get a
much more immediate reaction.  So trying to balance all that's going on.  And
I though the only way to do it was actually to write the poem in the
photograph.  And writing it on the person, that meant you could take a portion
of the person, you could write your poem.  You take a photograph too and get a
much more complete thing.  So I'd done a few of those and Kate saw them and
liked the idea, so we tried... initially we were going to try them for the
album cover, but that didn't work out, it was much too busy.  But it worked
well I think for the single back. 
        PADDY: [??? Inaudible] Are there any other [??? silly] questions. 
        FAN: As far as books on Kate Bush, that have been published, they seem
to be absolute rubbish. 
        PADDY AND JAY: YEAH!
        FAN: They've made Jay out to be some morose figure who hides in dark
alleys..
        JAY: Yeah. [Laughter from audience] 
        FAN: And your whole family to be eccentric.  Do you resent that and
could Kate Bush put the record straight by writing her own biography? 
        JAY: I think, yes, initially we resented it and it was a bit of a
shock and that's the usually process, finding out whether I wanted to do
anything to stop it, because a lot of it was quite unpleasant and very un-[???
flattering] to me.  And we decided that we wouldn't because that would fuel
the fire of the sort of people who were doing it. 
        PADDY: [Makes funny voice] Nasty Bushes!  Stop us going to press!
[???? inaudible] Us!  [Laughter from Audience]
        JAY: Actually for her to do a book we find it's rather difficult
because she doesn't get on the [??? planet] that long.  And slight attempts
were made of it but I think actually seeing your life spread out in one big
long effort is very weird sensation.  So, no, they haven't have.  Whether they
will in the future, I don't know.  I doubt it somehow.  But I'm sure they'll
be plenty more books as far as the ones we've been talking about now.  But
it's just an unfortunate aspect of the music industry.  But, as you say, they
are rubbish and they're rubbish in so many details, not in what they say about
us but just in what they call "fact" is all wrong.  And they don't rely them
at all, [??? inaudible] 
        FAN: Did Fred Vermorel every meet you? 
        JAY: No, nor Paddy. 
        PADDY: No, not one of us. 
        [Inaudible and Laughter]
        JAY: He wants to know where he could find us.  [More laughter] Just
for our own person protection from him, you know he went through our dust
bins, too.  Some people make a living... [??? inaudible]
        ANOTHER FAN: I was just wondering how much communication there is
between Kate and the Bush camp and EMI America?  Maybe specificly concerning
MTV not showing the original video of Running Up That Hill? 
        JAY: Yes, that's quite interesting.  There has now been [??? some]
good communications because we just came back from America.  Where the
reaction to Kate's music was good, very positive.  And Canada too.  And I
think the high point of that was the personal appearance at Tower Records in
New York, which surprised not only us but the record company and the people
who run the store.  On all levels, because the people went right around the
block which they hadn't expected.  They'd got a lot of police to police it,
when they didn't need to, everybody was very well behaved.  And the enthusiasm
of the fans and, well you all know this anyway, took them by surprise.  And I
think it also made them see that there's a much bigger market and that's all
their interested in, is making money.  They saw a much bigger market potential
because there were people from 15 to 50 queuing.  And they'd never been able
to isolate a Kate Bush fan and in a sense they still couldn't.  But you could
see with all the signs moving round and round [laughter] [??? inaudible].  So
I think communications with them are much better, yeah. 
        PADDY: As far as Running Up That Hill goes, it's this great technical
problem.  MTV weren't particularly interested in broadcasting videos that
didn't have synchronized lip movements in them.  They liked the idea of people
singing songs.
        FAN: But I've seen lots of other videos on MTV where they have lots of
parts where they aren't any syncronizations of...
        JAY: Yes, but I think... Yeah, I see what you mean but I think that
what they've done is they decided to typecast her very early on [???
inaudible] - It didn't actually work and they're still trying to get out of
that habit.  And when they saw the video, it wasn't at the time in which the
record had taken off the way it did in the states.  So they were probably
trying to be fairly cautious.  And that's why they [??? inaudible] vocal
track.
        FAN: They didn't approach you saying make another video where she's
lip synching did they? 
        JAY: No. 
        PADDY: Not exactly.  [Laughter]
        JAY: No.  Well if they paid for it, maybe...
        PADDY: Yeah, but there just wasn't the time available.  So [???
inaudible] was it re-instated?
        JAY: Well, the original one is being shown now [???? and it's the only
version that I love].  I think maybe its an educating process.  [??? people]
have to get used to it.
        IED: They did actually show the original video in Los Angeles on a
spanish salsa station. [Laughter]
        FAN: And in most of the clubs they showed the original one, too. 
        JAY: Yeah, but that was... the big reaction to that [??? video in] the
dance clubs really surprised everybody, cause it's certainly the first time
Kate's had a dance [??? inaudible]
        PADDY: [??? inaudible].  Yes.
        FAN: Explain the Kick Inside.
        PADDY: Explain The Kick Inside.  [Laughter] 
        JAY: The track The Kick Inside, or the album? 
        PADDY: The track. 
        IED: [Mumbles] The meaning of life.
        PADDY: The track owes its roots to a traditional English-Scottish song
called Lucy Wan [??? spelling].  And it's an incredibly sad, heart rending
song about incest and terrible things and blood and death and it's about the
sadist thing that's every been...
        JAY: And it's very long. 
        PADDY: Oh, very, very long.  And much in the same way that St.
Claustintine's [??? spelling] fire dance provided the [??? grabbing]
inspiration for the Jig Of Life, you could easily trace a lot of the energies
in The Kick Inside directly back to Lucy Wan.  And in fact there were one or
two experiments at the time of recording the album where actual sections from
Lucy Wan were taken and processed and used in a very unusual way, which I'm
not going to tell you about because we might try and use it in something else.
 But it wasn't actually kept for the track.  But if you find the song Lucy
Wan, you'll find all the inspiration for it.  Ah, is that it? 
        FAN: What's the strange saying on the B-side of The Hounds Of Love
Album [??? inaudible]
        PADDY: Yes, it's... In fact it's not Kate it's one of the ladies from
EMI.  [??? inaudible] Her name is [??? inaudible].  And she sang "deeper,
deeper..."
        FAN: "Somewhere in the death there is a light"
        PADDY: "Somewhere in the death there is a light." 
        FAN: In German.
        JAY: In German. 
        PADDY: In German. 
        FAN: [??? inaudible]
        PADDY: Well, it snowed a couple of days ago.  It snowed a couple of
days ago [??? inaudible] and I'm just on my way [??? inaudible] at this
moment.  I'll let you know [??? inaudible] what's going on.  They keep melting
on me. Thank you. 
        FAN: [??? inaudible] 
        PADDY: [??? inaudible]
        FAN: [??? inaudible]
        PADDY: [??? inaudible]
        JAY: You got to remember that record companies are only there to make
money and if you saw them as washing machines, manufacturing companies, it's
like that. And I can't really blame them.  If they don't make the effort in
some direction its something that they don't think is going to make them
money. 
        PADDY: They tend to promote at the time, when there is something to
promote.[??? inaudible] 
        JAY: And if they see something that they think is going to work [???
inaudible] and certainly the accessability of the last album, for most people,
and they did it and it worked.
        PADDY: Did most of you get the album this time without any difficulty?
 [Laughter]  Good. 
        FAN: [???? inaudible]
        JAY: Ah, dear! 
        FAN: [??? burning]
        JAY: I think it's just, it's just what it means.  If you know what
gaffa is, and in the music business "gaffa" is a very heavy duty tape.  It's
used everywhere, sticking things down, mending things, makings cases.  And I
think the idea is probably if you're wrapped up in this stuff and just [???
stuffed] 'round, your suspended waiting for time.  And I think the rest of it
is saying [??? inaudible] that's the problem. 
        PADDY: One more question. 
        FAN: [??? Inaudible.  Something like do you have a favorite Kate Bush
song?] 
        PADDY: For me. Yes, yes.  [??? inaudible], singing on the end of it,
but it's Get Out Of My House, really, was my favorite track.  I think if
Alfred Hitchcock ever made hit singles [Laughter] [??? inaudible]  And I love
it, I love the energy that it deals with.  It's fantastic.  And Paul
Hardiman's vocals on the very beginning of it I think are, to me, one of the
most fantastic things thats ever been recorded.  I used to go into fits of
extascy when we listened to the multi-track tapes of that and those opening
"Eoyores" and a marvelous [??? inaudible].  I love that track. 
        JAY: I think my favorite one's Houdini [??? inaudible].  But I think
the emotional whatever it is that getting across on that track is very
inspired and very dynamic and I still find it very exciting. 
        PADDY: Final question, then? [??? inaudible] arm over there?    FAN:
On the album [??? inaudible] I'd love to hear what you did.  It sounds like
[??? inaudible].  Is that right? 
        PADDY: Yes. [??? inaudible] They're singing a phrase.  You take a
phrase and you record it.  Then you play that backwards so it comes [sings
backwards.  Laughter].  Then you learn how to sing that, like you learn how to
[sings backwards.  Lots of laughter and applause] Then when you record that...
then when you play that back the other way [talks like reversed tape] it all
comes out in a very strange way.  Like you've heard this technique used
before, and it's something that we all [??? inaudible.  Laughter] Thank you
very much for giving us this opportunity to being [??? inaudible and applause]
        
        


        


        
        

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