Dreaming Debut Part I

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

The Dreaming Debut
------------------
Radio 2
Sept. 13, 1982

[Wuthering Heights is played]

        I: Well it was number 1 for quite a few weeks back in 1978, a song
called Wuthering Heights and it certainly launched the name of Kate Bush all
over the world.  It established her as an instant international success.  And
today, well, Kate Bush brings out a brand new album.  Her story, I suppose,
has been told many times, everybody knows what a tremendous success she's
been.  And the new album on your shelves today is called The Dreaming.  
        I know, Kate, it has taken you virtually a whole year to write it and
record it and produce it, indeed.  So how often can you have the luxury of
devoting a year to an album. 
        K: Oh, well, that is the first time.  I think the thing that happens
is each time I do an album it takes me longer and with this album it was very
demanding and there were lots of things that I wanted to do so I knew it was
going to take a long time.  But it is a luxury, really, to be able to spend
that amount of time in the studio.
        I: You were also telling me though it's been a lot of hard work.  I
mean a year sounds a long time but it's been hard work getting it all
together. 
        K: Yes, it has.  I think it's the hardest thing I've ever done.  It's
definitely the most involved thing I've ever done.
        I: Because, again, it's your bid to come up with something really
different, is that why it's been, you know, time consuming and more difficult?
        K: Yes, that's definitely got something to do with it.  But when
you're working on songs they very much dictate what you should do to them, so
in many ways I was just trying to make the songs as best as they could be and
they were very much demanding what should be done to them. 
        I: I notice in fact that you've given one track a rather Irish flavor,
you involved the group Planxty. 
        K: Yes, indeed! 
        I: Now again, that goes back a bit to your own family traditions,
doesn't it? 
        K: Yes, very much so, because my mother is Irish and when I was very
little the music in the house was very Irish traditional music.  And I think
I've always loved it. 
        I: So you were brought up on the Barron [??? spelling] and the Fiddles
and the pipes and all of the rest of it? 
        K: Yeah, absolutely! 
        I: So what have you done with this particular track? 
        K: Well, when I wrote the song I felt straight away that the choruses
where just waiting for something like a Caley [??? spelling] band and it was
just a matter of getting in touch with the people from Planxty and seeing if
there were willing to do it.  And I managed to contact a man called Bill
Whelan, who's the keyboard player in Planxty, and he arranged the whole
passage in the choruses.  And it's really beautiful, I think it's changed the
song a great deal, and definitely for the better.  [Laughs]
        I: Certainly a very different sign for Kate Bush, what else have you
done on the album that makes it different?
        K: Well, what's nice really, because each song is slightly different,
I've been able to use lots of different people to do their thing on the track.
 And it was nice, because the last single had a very Australian flavor, so we
used a lot of Australian sounding instruments...
        I: Not the dijeridu!?
        K: Yes, indeed. 
        I: Oh, my goodness.  [Kate laughs]  What, Rolf Harris? 
        K: Yes, indeed!
        I: In person?
        K: In person!  [Laughs]
        I: And who else have you used? 
        K: Well I've been using some different string arrangers, which is
nice.  I used a man called Dave Lawson and what's nice about him is he's
worked alot in film music and so he's very sort of visually inspired.  And
it's nice to work with someone that's used to working with visuals as apposed
to just audials.  And I used a choirboy on one track, that was very nice. 
I've never worked with children, before, really.  And he was beautiful, he was
really perfect. 
        I: And this is the first time you've produced an album.
        K: Yes. 
        I: Again, was this at your instigation,  I mean that you wanted to see
the whole thing through from beginning to end and that everything would be
you? 
        K: Well when I wrote the songs for this album, they felt very
different from any of the songs I've written before and it just felt write
that I should go the whole way this time.  I don't know if I've ever really
felt like that before and I don't know if I will in the future, but I really
felt that way with these songs, that it was important that I did follow it
through with this one. 
        I: Do you ever worry about taking such a long time away from recording
and chart signs and being in touch with the public as such, that the public
will get a bit fickle and, not exactly forget, but certainly, you know, that
that instant thing might not be there? 
        K: Hmmm.  Yes I think it worries me alot.  Especially as there seem to
be more projects that I do that do take up a lot of time, like maybe a year at
a time.  But I have to really sit and think, you know, what is the most
important thing to me, to stay in the public's eye or to make sure that the
work I do is more interesting and that it gets better.  And really the only
way to make sure that the work gets better is to concentrate on it.  So that's
definitely my priority. 
        I: Hmm.  Early on we were taking about Tony Handcock having been a
real perfectionist.  Now you're a real perfectionist, yourself, I know that
cause you believe in putting a lot of grind work and homework into it.  For
example, all the dance and mime classes you taken, you know, for your visual
side of it.  And you're back at your dance classes again, so what exactly are
you doing? 
        K: Well, for the last couple of months I've been getting back into
training because while I've been making the album there's been not time at
all, so I've been unfit for a whole year.  And of course when you leave it
alone for a length of time coming back to it is even harder and it's very
painful, you know, you can't walk for days.  But it's all in preparation for
things that are coming up in the future, for videos and that sort of thing. 
So there are a lot of areas that I have to work on all time, which is again
why I seem to be so busy. 
        I: Originally what was your idea in wanting to incorporate theatre,
really, into your presentation of music? 
        K: Well, I'd been writing songs for a long time and I was very happy
about the idea of being involved in music and I'd never even really thought
about dance until I decided to leave school because I wanted to get involved
in the music.  So dance just came out of the blue really,.  I needed something
to do, something to work on while I wasn't at school and something that would
complement the music.   And dance, really, just became the obvious thing.  I
was very lucky to go and see a show by Lindsay Kemp and he really inspired a
couple of years of hard work in dance schools for me.
        I: Yes, but it's more than dance, I mean, you took mime lessons...
        K: Yes. 
        I: ... and around is that whole theatrical... I mean everything is
really exaggerated, isn't it? 
        K: Yes, I think very much the theatrical flavour came again from
Lindsay.  Because he's surrounded by a strange magic, it's a very unusual
theatrical magic.  And once you've seen a show of his or you've been involved
with him, it stays with you forever.  It happens to everyone who works with
Lindsay.
        I: Well Kate, we look forward to taking to you through until two
o'clock.  The calls will be coming in on 01-580-44-11. 

[Tape cuts.  The Man With The Child In His Eyes is played]

        I: A rather wistful sound from Kate Bush, our special guest until two
o'clock today.  That record was a follow up to that smash hit, Wuthering
Heights, back in 1978.  It was called The Man With The Child In His Eyes.  And
we'll be hearing some tracks off Kate's new album, which is on the shelves
today.  The title of it is The Dreaming and we'll be taking your telephone
calls as well.  But thinking about The Man With The Child In His Eyes, now you
wrote that... the age of what, fourteen, fifteen, around that period.
        K: Yes, yes that's right. 
        I: Very young, so you obviously started really at a very early age,
writing? 
        K: Yes, I did.  I probably wrote the first song when I was about
eleven, but I mean it was terrible [laughs], very overdone.  And I think the
more you write songs you, just get a knack for them, hopefully. [Laughs]
        I: You mentioned early that your family were musical, you know, your
mother sort of enjoyed music and so on.  Was it just because of that
background that you wanted to write or was it a love of poetry or reading or
what? 
        K: I think it was a big combination of everything.  Cause my mother is
a... well when she was in Ireland she used to dance all the time so there's
definitely that spirit in her.  And I think all of us have, in the family,
have tended to go towards the musical direction, which is very interesting. 
I'm sure it comes from her and perhaps my father as well 'cause he used to
play the piano alot, so maybe it's the combination. 
        I: You're father's a doctor, though, isn't he?
        K: Yeah, that's right, yes. 
        I: ...is still a doctor?
        K: Yes he is, yes. 
        I: But at home, I mean, did you have a lot of these musical sessions
and is that partly what set the theme for you?
        K: Well, when I was about six, seven, that sort of age, my two
brothers were getting into folk music alot and they were going 'round to folk
clubs.  And they'd often have evenings every week where a load of there
friends would come 'round and in a way it's quite parallel to the sort of
evenings that would have happened in Ireland...
        I: Caleys [??? spelling]
        K: That's right!  Where they just play music all night, and they'd be
playing folk songs.  And as I got a bit older I started to join in and learn
folk songs, I mean they were the first songs I really learned - sea shanties,
that sort of thing. 
        I: Do you remember any of those songs?
        K: Um, vaguely, yeah.  I mean, some of them I still love to listen to
because the stories are always so interesting, they're beautiful, lovely
lyrics.  And the tunes are always very pretty as well. 
        I: But then you were signed to your record company at around sixteen
and yet you weren't launched until you were about nineteen. 
        K: No.
        I: Was it a question of just, you know, keeping you writing there and
waiting for the right song? 
        K: I don't think so because I was very young.  I was sixteen, still at
school, and I had no experience in the business at all.  And I think in a way
all of us wanted to just hang on until I was a bit more prepared to cope with
the situation.  And as far as I'm concerned I'm very glad that did happen,
because in those two years between leaving school and things starting to
happen when the album was released, I really built a foundation for myself as
a person as well as for the direction I was going in.  Since I left school I
was going to London every day and to dancing classes and really for the first
time becoming an individual.  And I think those couple of years were really
important. 
        I: I have to ask you, though, about your high pitched range, what
reaction did you get when you came out with Wuthering Heights to the actual
pitch?
        K: I think there were a lot of different reactions, some people really
liked it, some people really didn't, and other people found it very amusing. 
For me, really, I just see it as a phase of my writing where I was just into
playing around with that kind of range.  And I find it changes, I mean as far
as I'm concerned that's an old style for me now.  But of course a lot of
people still see that as being me now.  But that's just, you know, part of the
time situation where for a lot of people they will always think of me as
Wuthering Heights and nothing else.  But...
        I: That was partly because it was so unusual, you know.  It was really
quite unique in itself. 
        K: Yes, I suppose so.  And also of course it was the most successful
single I've had, so that obviously does tend to stick in people's mind alot. 
But as far as I'm concerned, I feel like I'm changing, hopefully with each
album I do. 
        I: Do you ever listen back to a lot of records and say [makes "UGH"
sound.  Kate laughs.]?  "Don't like what I did there."
        K: I very rarely listen to my old stuff and when I do hear it, yes it
is sometimes that feeling, yeah. 
        I: In what?  In content, or voice pitch, or what? 
        K: It's especially my voice.  I mean, in a way I'm still quite fond of
some of the flavors of the old albums and some of the songs, but, my voice, it
seems...  it always sounds so young to me, because, you know, I feel that it's
changing all the time.  I: [Imitates Wuthering Heights voice.  Kate laughs.] 
I was practicing all night, you see, to no avail whatsoever.  However,
Johnaton Jinkins is on the line from Cornwall from St. Austin [??? spelling]. 
Hello Jonathan? 
        Jonathan: Hello, Gloria. 
        I: And what's your question to Kate Bush? 
        Jonathan: Also, Kate.
        K: Hello!
        Jonathan: A couple of times you've mentioned in your songs a person
called Gurdjieff.  I know a little about him, but I wonder if you could
explain what his beliefs or tresis are and how he influences are and how he
influences you in... well when you make your music? 
        K: Well, Gurdjieff was really an influence in that I'd just read some
of his books and really no more than that.  And I'd just found a lot of what
he said interesting, but that's really as far as it goes. 
        Jonathan: Maybe we should elaborate a little bit about who the
gentleman is?
        K: Yes, well Gurdjieff was... he was considered a leader of a
religious movement, I think.  But as far as I know he just had a lot of ideas
about creating a way that would make people stronger and more together.  And
it's just a different way of doing it.  And it was also trying to go for a
more western way of doing.  But I do very little about it, so I really
wouldn't like to say very much because it's a subject that I feel if I'm going
to speak about than I should know what I'm talking about and I don't.
        I: It's obviously something you've caught'n onto, Jonathan.
        K: Yes.  [Laughs]
        Jonathan: Yeah. 
        I: Are you interested in that side of it? 
        Jonathan: Well a friend of mine mentioned him to me and I knew basicly
nothing about him.  And I went to a local library and there was nothing there
about him.  So, of course, Kate mentioned him in a few of her songs, so I just
wondered if you could inform me anymore?
        I: Well the influence was minimal by the sound of it. 
        Jonathan: Yeah.
        K: Yes, yes it was, yes.
        I: Touch luck Jonathan, you picked out the wrong one.  [Kate laughs]
        Jonathan: [??? inaudible]
        I: Thank you very much indeed for your call. Bye, bye. 
        K: Bye. 
        Jonathan: Bye. 
        I: Who else influenced you, do you feel, in terms of your writing or
your performance?
        K: Gosh, so many people.  I think definitely, my performance I would
say people like Lindsay and a lot of the teachers that I was taught by,
especially when I started dance, because there's no doubt when you're being
taught movements they stay, you remember those patterns.  And I suppose in
writings, gosh...
        I: Even in terms of other performers, I mean who do you admire?  I'm
not saying that you would copy there style or anything. 
        K: I'm a big admirer of Bowie, and people like David Bryne as well. 
Eno, I think Eno is fantastic.  Captain Beefheart, it's a very wide range,
really.  I think there's a lot of music that I enjoy.  But it's mainly people
that tend to show strength and originality.  People like Bowie, who have gone
for something different and they're still standing there. 
        I: Well, you've certainly got the originality.  And we'll be back for
more questions from you at home.  Thank you for the calls, they're coming in
fast and furious.  And we'll be back to you right after this new single from
Gilbert O'Sullevin.

[Bare With Me is played]

        I: ...single from Gilbert O'Sullevin, it's called Bare With Me.  The
time is twenty-one minutes past one o'clock.  Kate Bush is our special guest
today, taking telephone calls, that's just a little bit of information in case
you've joined us on your lunch break.  And if you have, well then welcome
along, you're late.  [Kate laughs]  Miles Zedon is the next caller from Draton
in Portsmith.  Good afternoon to you Miles.
        Miles: Hello, Gloria. 
        I: Lot's of sunshine in Portsmith, at the moment? 
        Miles: Yeah, it's beautiful at the moment.
        I: Oh, good.  You sound very chirpy. 
        Miles: [Laughs]
        I: And what's your question for Kate. 
        Miles: Right. I just wanted to ask Kate: I noticed with her recent
single, The Dreaming, it's got a type of an aborigine sound and I just want to
know whether there was anything that inspired you to change your style of
music? 
        K: Yes, well I think that, ah, well, especially for that song, it was
inspired years ago by Rolf Harris's Sun Arise.  And, although when I heard it
then - I was probably about six - it never occurred to me that I would write a
song inspired by it, that is in fact what happened 'cause it's been in my head
ever since.  
        Miles: Cause he plays on it, doesn't he? 
        K: Yes he does, that's right. 
        Miles: Yeah. 
        K: Yes. 
        I: I suppose in terms of general ideas, Kate, maybe we could talk a
little about that.  Just where you pluck these ideas from, is this something
that occurs to you in every day life or do you discipline yourself to sit down
and think about things?
        K: They're very often ideas that come out of other people's creations.
 Films and books are very much big inspirations to me.  For instance, there's
a track on this album that was..  really the whole atmosphere was inspired by
The Shining.  I read the book and it was such an incredibly strong atmosphere,
very creepy, very haunted, and I used it to like set a song using the same
atmosphere, but instead of it being a hotel it being like a house, which is
also a human being.  And just playing with the feelings that I got when I read
the book and trying to put that same kind and strangeness into the song. 
        I: I'm going to turn the tables a little bit, Miles, what do you like
about Kate's music? 
        Miles: I don't know, it's just different, really.  As she said it's
very expressive, her music and it's meaningful...
        K: [whispers] Yeah!
        Miles: ... and you know every song is different, I think, she's trying
to say something different.  So, you know, I've liked Kate's records ever
since Wuthering Heights, so...
        I: You've been hooked. [Kate laughs]
        Miles: I have, I'm afraid. 
        K: Yeah, great Miles!  [Laughs]
        I: You're a deep thinker, Miles.  I'm telling you.  [Kate laughs] 
You're in as far as Kate's concerned. 
        Miles: Oh, that's good. 
        K: A very intelligent human being!
        I: So thank you very much for your call. 
        Miles: Okay, thanks very much. 
        I: Are you heading back to work? 
        Miles: Yes, I am now, yeah. 
        I: What do you work at? 
        Miles: I work at a bank. 
        I: In a bank! 
        Miles: Yeah. 
        I: Oh, you're one of the civilized people of this community.
        Miles: Oh, yeah. 
        I: Are you a teller? 
        Miles: Well, not at the moment, no.  They sorta changed around a bit. 
        I: Okay, well we'll let you get back to work anyway.  Thanks, Miles
for the call.  Okay, bye, bye. 
        Miles: Bye, bye. 
        I: And from Portsmith we move to Essex.  We have Graham Singleton on
the line.   Good afternoon to you, Graham. 
        Graham: Good afternoon. 
        I: Are you home or at work or where?
        Graham: Um, at home. 
        I: You're at home.  Doing what? 
        Graham: Ah, not alot. 
        I: Not alot.  Are you still at school as a matter of interest? 
        Graham: Yeah. 
        I: And when do you go back? 
        Graham: Um, well I'm back at the moment. 
        I: Oh, you're just on a lunch break.  Good, well I'm glad you've
joined us on your lunch break.  And what's your question for Kate Bush?
        Graham: I'd like to ask her what's she's going to do, eventually. 
Whether she's going to stay on the singing or use her ten "O" levels [Kate
laughs] to go get a job or go into acting? 
        I: Do you want to use your ten "O" levels to get a job, a proper job? 
        K: [Laughs] Yeah, get a proper job, yeah.  Well I would like to think
that I'm going to stay in the singing world because I think the thing that
means a lot to me - it means more than anything, really.  I think I'd rather
stay writing songs and singing them then anything else and if there's any way
that I can continue to do that then I would love to very much.  But, I must
admit, dancing is another interest that perhaps I would go off on a bit more
in the future, it really depends [on] how things go for me. 
        I: Yes, but as Graham has mentioned your ten "O" levels [Kate laughs]
very aptly.  When you think about it, you mentioned earlier that finishing
your exams and taking that period before you went into the business
consolidated a lot of your own thoughts.  And as suppose that eduction in
terms of reading and, you know, widening your horizons, that must really stand
you in good stead anyway. 
        K: Yes, I think it helped a bit.  I think the thing about "O" levels,
especially with me, is that I don't remember most of what I learnt to get
those "O" levels.  It was very much a matter of rehearsing for the exams,
getting them, then forgetting the information.  But I think there are a couple
of subjects that certainly helped me.  English, especially, the essays and the
competitions they were a very big starting ground for me.  And also the music,
because I learnt the violin at school and in many ways that gave me lot of
knowledge about theory and sight reading.  So I'm sure they did help quite a
lot, yes. 
        I: What stage are you at, Graham, at school. 
        Graham: Well, I'm not very far...
        I: Well, what form are you in - third year, fourth year...? 
        Graham: Well, I'm not actually at school at the moment, my mum's
teaches me at moment. 
        I: You're not at school.  Right.  OK Graham, well thank you very much
for the call.  All the very best to you. 
        K: Bye, Graham! 
        Graham: Bye. 
        I: Good luck.  And we come to the album, we're going to hear the first
track off this new album, which is out today.  The album is called The
Dreaming and this song is about Houdini.  So I think first of all, the story
behind the song. 
        K: Well, Houdini, I think most people know him for being the
escapologist, the man who's who's wriggling around in a sack on the pavement. 
But I started finding out about a side of his life that seemed more
interesting, for me, where he spent a lot of years actually going around to
mediums and seances, exposing the fact that they were frauds.  He'd try to
contact his mother when she died and he just meant fraud after fraud and they
were after his money and as far he was concerned they were just making people
very unhappy just in order to get money.  So he spent years just going 'round
to these places, and revealing the wires and revealing the technicalities and
all this sort of thing.  But between him and his wife they made a code and it
was very strange because they made this so that if perhaps one of them ever
died and the other tried to contact them through a medium or a seance, that
they would know that it was really them and not a fraud.  And when Houdini
died his wife did actually start going around to the mediums and the seances,
more or less what he had done when he had been alive.  And the same thing for
years, she just came across so many fakes and people that really were not true
mediums at all.  Until one day she had a phone call from a man who said that
Houdini had come through to him.  So she went to see him, and he gave her the
code that only Houdini and her had known and as far as she was concerned he
had made contact with her.
        So the [??? inaudible tape cuts out] is really all about her and him
and how very much in love they were and how terrible it was for her when he
died, but that they did make contact again.  So it's all about that special
moment. 

[Houdini is played]
        
        I: That's off Kate Bush's new album.  The album is called Dreaming
[sic] and that particular track was called Houdini.  And in fact Houdini's
wife in that particular track was, as it were, possessed, there was quite a
lot of distortion.  How did you achieve that effect? 
        K: Well the idea is that it's as she's watching him go off into his
tank of water for the last time, and it's the idea that she is this sort of
possessed demon that's terrified of him going.  And I drank about a pint of
milk before I did the vocal and ate like two bars of chocolate.  And the great
thing about those sort of foods is it really creates a lot of mucus and
normally that's the last thing you want when you sing, you normally want a
very pure voice, but I wanted to get all that sort of spit and gravel in the
thought.  [Clears thought]  So I worked on bringing the gravel out and then we
also... as I sung the track we sped the track up a bit so that when it was
played back the voice would just be slightly deeper, just have slightly more
weight in it. 
        I: Hm.  Some of the tricks of the trade in recording studios.
        K: [Laughs] Yes. 
        I: Our next caller is Melissa Grief, she's in Davashire.  Hello to
Melissa. 
        Melissa: Hello.
        I: Are you at home today?
        Melissa: Pardon? 
        I: Are you at home today? 
        Melissa: Yes, I am. 
        I: You are.  What's your question for Kate Bush? 
        Melissa: I wanted to know what kind of expectations and apprehensions
she has of herself and of an audience before a performance?
        I: The old nerves, Melissa, aye? 
        K: Hmm. 
        I: Are you nervous before you go on stage?
        K: Um, I'm probably not as nervous before I go on stage for a concert
as I am for a lot of other things.  The great thing about the show we did, for
instance, was we rehearsed it for so long that it was... there was very little
to be that nervous of, because it was so rehearsed.  In fact, it was quite a
relief to do it for the first night because it was actually going out to an
audience.  But I think I do suffer from nerves alot in other areas, and I
worry a lot, especially about, you know, is my music good enough at the
moment, am I really doing the right thing, is this good enough, is that good
enough.  And I think it is all quite tied in with nerves so I do get nervous
in situations where things are very important.  But, I think you learn to
cope.  But sometimes I'm... I mean, like I'm a lot less nervous about some
things now then I used to be and other things...
        I: For example, I mean what are you less nervous about? 
        K: Um, well things like this.  I mean, I still get nervous for
instance, like speaking on the radio, but it's not as nerve racking for me as
it would have been a couple of years ago.  And yet other things seem to get
even more worrying for me.  One of the hardest things I find to do, is get up
in a room full of people and just speak to them.  I think that is incredibly
difficult. 

[End of first part.  Second part real soon.]

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