full text of 1985 Pulse! interview

[tessi!john@nosun.West.Sun.COM (John Zimmer)]

(Haven't seen a digest since Saturday, hope this gets thru...)

Following is the full text of the interview from _Pulse!_, Dec. 1985, which was
excerpted earlier (Ron already got his copy ;).  Usual disclaimers & copyright violation notices apply...

>From Tower _Pulse!_, December 1985
by Richard Laermer
--------------------------------
    KATE BUSH'S _HOUNDS OF LOVE_: HAVE THE MASSES FINALLY FOUND KATE?

	To the unacquainted ear, Kate Bush's music may seem esoteric,
obscure.  To millions of followers and admirers, she's Britain's 27-
year-old pop genius.  Bush has proved she can withstand pressure to 
"go commercial" by sticking to her blend of unusual lyrics and mysterious 
tunes, and still sell records.  Her newest, _Hounds of Love_, is biting 
off _Billboard's_ Hot 200 in 20-position chunks.
	Bush, who began recording at age 16, is a former protege of 
David Gilmour, leader of Pink Floyd; a debut single, "Wuthering Heights", 
was Europe and Asia's big '77 smash.  In her London home Bush acknowledges 
that "It hasn't changed much -- things move very quickly for me.  I spend 
quite a bit of time on an album and then I have to work hard to make sure 
it's heard."
	The latest of five Bush collections just hit the bins and now
_Hounds of Love_ is being stacked alongside such long-standing successes 
as Heart and Motley Crue.  Before, _The Kick Inside_, _Lionheart_, _Never 
For Ever_, and _The Dreaming_ were but small cult items.  But _Hounds of 
Love_ is even getting Top 40 airplay in the disco-takeoff "Running Up 
That Hill (A Deal With God)", now on MTV's medium rotation list.
	"That song is going to puzzle a lot of people," says Bush.  "I think
perhaps the word God conjures up a sense of religion but it's quite often 
used symbolically," particularly on her disc.  She sings "If I could/
I'd make a deal with God/And get him to swap our places," as God is the
"only person who can make the true bond of love possible."  She laughs: "Hopefully there are enough people who listen to the music and see that 
it's actually not that religious."
	The three years between _The Dreaming_ and _Hounds_ was both a 
hectic period of reorganization and a time of internal growth.  Bush 
shocked London single-buyers and American fans by not releasing anything 
(outside two French-language remixes of old songs).  She moved herself and 
the music to the country so "I could finally have fun and experiment on 
Fairlight [synthesizer]," which now acts as keyboard on Bush's work.  Former 
melodic tones have been replaced by a desire to "make the music stronger."
	"We bought and equipped our own studios and then recorded all tracks 
there.  It made a really big difference."  _The Dreaming_ took two years 
and countless pounds of studio time.  In her new digs, "The phone stopped 
ringing all the time and it stopped the pressure [because] you can experiment 
without the clock ticking away.  I found it more conducive to the whole 
creative process."
	Bush says _Hounds of Love_ serves as "half a concept album, the 
first side being five separate songs."  The flipside's dubbed "The Ninth 
Wave" or, "a journey for a woman asleep on the water:  There are people 
trying to keep her awake and not let her fall asleep ['And Dream of Sheep'].
Then she falls asleep and has a dream -- but wakes up from the dream only 
to find herself underwater ['Under Ice'].  And then she has hallucinations 
where people are saying 'Wake up, wake up, don't sleep anymore,' and trying 
to get her out of the water.  Except a witch finder pushes her right under because he assumes she's a witch ['Waking the Witch'].  Soon she travels home and sees her loved ones but they can't see her ['Watching You Without Me'] 
and hopefully it all leads to the hope and salvation of the morning ['The Morning Fog'] where everything comes to life again.  The sense of loneliness 
is taken over by the sense of someone saving them."

	Though that is exemplary of the Bush style -- extreme characters and 
odd concepts -- she has been known to go even further.  Several albums ago, 
"The Wedding List" described a protagonist "coming for" the ex-lover who 
killed her new husband.
	"Yes, the last records tended to be extreme," she says, noting how 
songs that changed "from mood to mood" made it more difficult for her to fully 
get involved with an entire record.
	"Perhaps there's more of a sense of continuity on this album," she comments, "but that's just my humble subjective opinion."  One thing's for 
sure: "It's the lightest album and the easiest for me emotionally."
	But being able to "turn ideas into pieces of plastic" has remained 
her emotional high.  "What is wonderful is I may read a book or see a movie 
and get a lot of visual imagery.  Except the influence won't surface in my 
music for maybe ten years," and she points to the latest single -- 
"Cloubusting" -- as case in point.  "I read this book, _The Book of Dreams_, [sic] about nine years ago and reread it during my break.  It was calling 
to me, this beautifully written story, through a child's point of view."
	Sighing, she adds, "When the ideas feel right they just come to the front and sort of go, 'Hi there.'"
	Plans of late are "getting on with the next record as soon as 
possible" and creating a full-length video version of "The Ninth Wave."  The 
future "isn't really planned.  I hope to keep doing what I do -- but go into 
slightly different areas."  Bush calls herself lucky as her wildest fantasy
is coming true:  the ability to remain true to her inventive mind without worrying about its results being accepted by the commercial world.
	Bush sings about that fantasy on _Hounds of Love_.  "You want my reply?/What was the question?/I was looking at the big sky."