**** EMI NEVER FOR EVER INTERVIEW 2A *******

[rhill@netrun.cts.com (ronald hill)]

        Oops sorry about that blank message.  I tried to send this a 
couple of days ago and no luck so here it is again.  I hope it doesn't 
got twice. 


        I: Did the tour (1979) change the way you felt about what you 
wanted to do in live work in the future? 
        K: Yes, it did.  I think it helped me tremendously because I felt 
that it worked and if it hadn't then it would have again totally changed 
my idea of live work. It makes me want to go on further, makes me feel 
that the show was an incredibly important starting point and yet it was 
quite embryonic in so many ways and there is so much more to do.  The 
thing that worries me is when to do the live work, because of things like 
money and time that's taken up rehearsing as well as actually doing the 
tour. 
        I: Isn't it true that almost no matter what you charge, you're 
not going to make money? 
        K: Well, I think probably if you do play in huge halls you can do 
it, but we didn't on the last tour, there was no way, mainly because of 
all the sets we had and huge crew to move the sets and theatrical props 
and things.  I don't think we ever could make money on the tours that we 
do.  But in so many ways that not important - as long as you can just 
break even that's fine.  I don't really expect to make money because I 
make so much more out of doing it - I get so much more for myself than 
money.
        I: You would never want to do a concert just singing with a 
microphone? 
        K: Well, I've thought about it a lot and I think it is the 
ultimate way in so many ways to perform, because it's so simple and 
simplicity is what everything should be.  But I do feel that I've got 
more to do in this area before I can then revert back to being just 
simple.  It seems that nobody is really trying this area and I wanted to 
- especially connecting dance, theatre and music together.  Because they 
are so compatible and Wagner did it very well a few years ago, so I would 
like to keep trying. 
        I: Are you still practising in dance? 
        K: No, I haven't, I've let it slip for a while.  I think the 
album was the main reason for that.  I tried to do some classes before we 
started in the afternoon and after about a week I was just so exhausted 
that my energies weren't going on either the dancing or the music 
properly. 
        I: "All We Ever Look For" is the fourth track on side 1 and it 
mentions your father, mother, brothers.  Did your family actually inspire 
this song?  
        K: Yes, they did.  Families as a whole did and because I am a 
member of a close family they were obviously in my mind a lot.  It's 
interesting the things that we do pick up from our parent - the way we 
look or little scratching habits or something and obviously the genetic 
thing must be in there.  All the time it's going round in a big circle - 
we are always looking for something, all of us, just people generally and 
so often we never get it.  We're looking for happiness, we're looking for 
a little bit of truth from our children, we're looking for God, and so 
seldom do we find it because we don't really know how to look. 
        I: And that's what the song is about - as you say, all we ever 
look for Another Womb; All we ever look for - a god, a drug, a great big 
hug, all these things.  It's amazing really that your family has managed 
to remain so close considering that your success must have thrown a 
spanner into the works in some way, at least upset the apple cart of 
ordinbut if you get a proper sound when the instrument is actually being 
put down on to tape then there's not much need to change it.  That's the 
point when the main concentration went on - when the actual musician was 
playing his part, playing his overdub, we would be very strict, and I 
think they worked incredibly hard because I did push them hard at times.  
What they did was so beautiful, so perfect, their sounds, so right. 
        I: The next track is called "Violin" (they had already discussed 
"The Wedding List" and to me it has a lot of new wave feel.  Does that 
seem an accurate thing to say? 
        K: Yes, we wanted to make it very bizarre and very very up and 
the idea was the mad fiddler, not so much the violinist in the orchestra 
but the mad fiddler like Paganini or Nero watching the city burn.  It was 
meant to be very fun, nothing deep and serious, nothing really 
meaningful, just a play on the fiddle, the things it represents, its 
madness. 
        I: You have another musician, Kevin Bird, playing the violin - 
have you yourself ever played that instrument? 
        K: Well, I did when I was a child, yes, I learnt it for a few 
years but while I was learning it I discovered the piano, I couldn't 
really relate to it in the same way.  Kevin is a fantastic fiddler, he 
used to be in the Bothy Band, I think he probably still is, and he's just 
wonderful - he's so Irish and so full of the music and he was so perfect 
for the song. 
        I: It's almost ironic that it does have a very up tempo new 
waveish feel because in some of your earliest interviews you said that 
some of your favourite artists were the new wave artists even though you 
yourself did not transmit as a new wave artist.  Do you think there's any 
paradox in that?
        K: Hard to say.  I suppose I can't really relate to them, that's 
what I mean, because I do feel different in so many ways, like the way I 
go about things.  I'm not projecting myself as a new wave person and 
people wouldn't accept me as such because my music is generally not in 
that area.  But I love the energy, I love the power and the rawness - I 
love raw music, it's very primitive, it's what so much of our music is 
about.  That's what I love and it's something I've always enjoyed - I've 
always loved rock 'n' roll and only recently have I started learning to 
control rhythm in my songs.  It's normally controlled me and it's mainly 
the rhythm box that has helped me tremendously. 
        I: Your songs all have different identity, very specific mood, 
based in part on the subject matter and one can't help but wonder  in 
what circumstances the ideas come to you.  Let's just take one, the next 
one - "The Infant Kiss". Where and how did that idea come to you?
        K: That's from a very old British movie, I think it's a Fifties 
movie that was called The Innocents and it was based on a book called The 
Turn of the Screw.  I haven't seen the film for I suppose eight years now 
but they showed it twice I think when I was much younger and it's a very 
very haunting film and the fact that it's in black and white makes it 
even spookier, it's very eerie.  The story is that a governess goes to 
look after two children, a young boy and a young girl who are in fact 
possessed by the spirits of the previous gardener and the maid - and she 
doesn't know this, as far as she's concerned they're just two children.  
She starts noticing that when she tucks the little boy in bed that 
instead of giving her a little peck on the cheek he give her a very big 
manly passionate kiss.  And in the film they really didn't go into that 
area very strongly, it was much more the haunting, but it always 
fascinated me that strange distortion of the child having a very 
experienced hard man inside.  Something that the child could never be 
without the experience that a much older man would have.  It seemed very 
disturbing and in order to make it very intimate and to make people try 
to understand how terrible it is for her, it's sung in the first person 
and it's really confusing for her, she's really terrified by what's 
happening. 
        I: I do find this such a beautiful lyric: Word of caress on their 
lips that speak of adult love, I want to smack by I hold back; I only 
want to touch.  You really do create this picture of a woman who wants to 
respond as a woman rather than as a governess or a mother.  Does the 
distortion of relationships in general other than just this particular 
one, appeal to you as a subject? 
        K: Yes, terribly.  I think it is that distortion that makes me 
want to write about it and there seems to be distortion in so many areas 
and that's what's so fascinating, because without that distortion things 
would probably be so simple, so easy and it's always that little thing 
that makes it hard for us. 
        I: There follows an interlude called "Night Scented Stock".  Have 
you ever wanted to do more in the way of instrumental or sound without 
words? 
        K: Yes, I have.  I think perhaps I've always felt worried about 
doing it myself because I've always written songs and I've never really 
regarded myself as much as a musician as a songwriter.  This album taught 
me that I should be a little more brave about that because music without 
words is just as beautiful and sometimes I feel the need to just keep 
putting words on music instead of just letting the music be.  I hope in 
the future that perhaps I will move into that area a little more. 


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rhill@netrun.cts.com (ronald hill)
NetRunner's Paradise BBS, San Diego CA