Interview Fachblatt MusikMagazin - English translation

[Ulrich Grepel <uli@intellektik.informatik.th-darmstadt.de>]

You know the feeling? You take an LP or CD into the plump handy-pandies and
you panik you might break the loved part. It gets really bad with the discs
of Kate Bush. You want to handle them very, very carefully with kid gloves.
That's probably coming from part of the lady sitting in the grooves.





K A T E  B U S H

The frame is appropriate. A country seat from the 18. century, the noble residence Chilston Park in the British county of Kent, converted to a hotel, offers the backtrop to a promotional event where Kate Bush should present her new album THE SENSUAL WORLD. The 31 year old doctor's daughter from Kent needed four years for her current work. Now it is done. Visibly relieved the brunette musician is sitting opposite of me in her spacious suite, slender as at our last meeting four years ago [is there another interview?]. "I don't know a log about fashion", Kate whispers modestly and plucks her salmon-pink t-shirt, decorated all over with ruches and laces, over the washed out jeans. No wonder, if you hide yourself away into the studio for four years!


                                                     By Christiane Rebmann

Your new album was already announced for last year. What does that deliberate confusion mean?

I was very upset then about that. The date was not mine. I do not like the pressure of a deadline in the studio at all.

Is it right that you have erased a lot of ready tapes?

Most of the songs I have developed step by step. I suddenly thought not good about some of the very early songs any longer. Therefore I only kept very small snippets of them and built them into the other songs. The work on this album degenerated into a kind of jigsaw puzzle.

A very lengthy game...

I wish it had not lasted that long. It was very frustrating for me. Instead of going more smoothly from album to album, I need more and more time from LP to LP. Because I find it difficult to get into the appropriate mood. Therefore I retreated again and again from time to time and diverted myself with gardening.

Has the pressure from the record company won over your perfectionism in the end?

There were about 50 voices buzzing through my head, saying: "The album is not yet ready. What about this part here?" At the end I invited all those voices to a kind of roundtable discussion and spoke a word of power: You are right, there are some things that need improvement. But at some time there has to be an end."

Even the bonus track on the CD contains such lovely developed details like the bird's scream at the end...

You mean in WALK STRAIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE? There is a nice story about that. When I played the song to my friends, my mother was working in the garden. She looked out of the window and she looked around searching and said: "Somewhere in the garden there has to be a peacock." The scream sounded so real! For example, WALK DOWN was a very early track we had intended for the b-side of th first single. At the end we were amazed about how well it sounded, with that clean base of Eberhard Weber. Therefore we took it as an extra track onto the CD. It probably is the quickest song I ever have written.

How many minutes did you need?

18 months [if that's quick, will the next album appear in this millenia ;-? (or in the next)] before completion of the album I had drums, keyboards and bass ready. Then I wrote the text, recorded my lead vocal and the chorus - everything on one day -, and on the next day I made some overdubs, and then we mixed the song. Two days. Normally I need an eternity alone for the lyrics. But I am not completely content with this one.

Only those people who have a studio on their own can affort the luxury to work four years on one album...

I don't believe I could work in a commercial studio nowadays. I would be much to nervous for that. I always would be frightened that it costs too much. Besides there are too many distractions. Constantly someone is showing in and borrows equipment and has a chat. In my studio I am not nervous at all. I work most of the time with my boyfriend, the bassist Del Palmer. There are not many distractions. We know ourselves too well. We know the working method of each other and accept them. I can write in the studio and go home inbetween, continue writing there and then go back to the studio. That's ideal for me. The own studio was the best idea I ever had. I am used to have everything under control by myself.

And how do you manage with the musicians helping you with the recordings?

When a musician comes into the studio and plays his part, then mostly I have new ideas. Then I sometimes rewrite a song complitely. That would be impossible in a hired studio. If you have booked the time, you have to use it. You cannot just go home between times.

How much did Dave Gilmours collaboration influence your songs?

I had the interests at heart to work again with Dave. And I even did manage to write a song that leaves room for his guitar. In my early songs there was never room for guitar solos [Violin? James And The Cold Gun (live)?] I never really liked them. I found guitar solos disgusting. But for this song ROCKET'S TAIL it was exactly right. At the moment where the rocket lifts of, the song changes into a hard rock-'n'-roll song. And who would be better suited for that part than Dave Gilmour with his guitar! He was wonderful. He simply is an excellent guitar player. He just came in and got going.

How did you came across the Trio Bulgarka?

My brother Paddy had played a tape with the Trio Bulgarka three years ago. I remembered that suddenly when I searched something that fitted to the Irish sounds in THE SENSUAL WORLD. I visited the Trio in Bulgaria. It was difficult, because I didn't speak a word of Bulgarian and they didn't speak a word of English. But they invited me into their houses and then they sang something to me. The three women sat around the kitchen table. Ava, the oldest one, took the telephone receiver and hummed the dialing tone and then they began to sing. It was so nice that I started crying. I never had heard so nice voices. In the studio we communicated mostly with hugs. They mothered me a little bit. With them a totally new component came into my music.

It is not the first time you incorporate elements from other cultures into your music.

This is my most feminine album. The rock music is dominated by men, by mighty drum sounds and powerful basses. These are the typical macho-sounds. I wanted to add feminine voices and feminine arrangements. I wanted to set out the feminine strength. The Bulgarian singers sound very feminin, but yet very powerful. Most women let men produce their records and even let men write their songs. I hope this doesn't sound sexistic, the men have achieved very much in music. But too seldom the women get a chance to bring out their own strength.

But in this respect you never had cause for complaint...

I was lucky that I worked with sensitive men most of the times. When I am in the studio, mostly I don't feel very feminine. I just work. But many women are forced to act aggressive like a man to have their way. They adopt typical male behaviour. That's a pity.

Your first hit WUTHERING HEIGHTS you wrote after a book by Emily Bronte. The title song of your new album has "Ulysses" by James Joyce as a model. You obviously are fond of making use of books.

But i am not very well-read. I did not even have a particularly well education. But i find that books are extraordinary suppliers of ideas. Therefore I always fall back on books.

And after what criteria do you select your models?

I do not belong to those people who keep rummaging around in bookshops for hours. I always accidentally come across interesting books. With CLOUDBUSTING for example it was such that the cover of the book fascinated me, even if there is nothing special on it. Then it emerged that in there was the most moving book I ever read. And nine years later I made the song CLOUDBUSTING out of it. At that time I had the feeling the whole thing was predetermined for me. Because there was no special reason to buy precisely that book. It may sound arrogant, but most of the inspirations came to me without me doing something for it. I believe that if I started for searching an inspiration, then I would dead certain not find anything.

The characters in WUTHERING HEIGHTS and [THE] SENSUAL WORLD are quite different...

Totally. The only parallel lies in there that in both songs the main person is a woman. Then Cathy and now Molly. With WUTHERING HEIGHTS the story fascinated me. That was *that* love story. Not even dead could separate Cathy from her lover. That love! That passion! With Ulysses the sensuality of the written style faszinated me. Not the story itself, but the words and the way to use them. It is an extraordinary piece. Very nice.

Why didn't you use Joyces original text?

I did not get the permission for that. That disappointed me very much. I fought very hard for that. At the end I said to myself: Well, then I write my own text with the same contents. That was incredibly difficult. Because I am not James Joyce.

The strong connection with sexuality in the original of Joyce has stayed...

In the original that is emphasized with the way the word "Yes" is used. Especially the passage at the end affected me, because it is so sensual and rhythmic. Like [? it is] a single long sentence that never ends. Like a terribly long train of thought. I was like enchanted. I have toned down that a little bit in my version. And I find that in Ulysses the emphasize is more on the sensuality than on pure sexuality. I am worried about many people understanding that in a different way. In the song the main character emerges from its black and white, two-dimensional world into the real world. The first impression is the sensuality of this world. The fact that you can touch things, that you can see the colour of the trees, feel the grass under the feet. The fact that we are surrounded by so much sensuality. We are not longer aware of them. But I am sure that someone who has not lived through that before would be overwhelmed.

Your song THE FOG is about becoming an adult. Did you choose that theme becaus you broke the sound barrier of 30 years?

I did not find it too exciting to become 30. I don't believe that the 30st birthday is something like a sound barrier. I rather believe that it depends on the years after that, on that what you do afterwards. It's a time where many things change and where you finally should become an adult.

What changes are in store for you in the next years?

I don't know. When an album is ready, I mostly have the feeling that I could just make another one [Please do...]. Because I am just in motion. Instead I have to pull out of that phase to move in other areas. Now for example there stands the promotion for that album.

But this time at the end I was fed up to stick in the studio for such a long time. It cost me an enormous effort to go into the studio every day. I know that most musicians feel that way at the end of the studio works. You drag yourself to the studio and think: You actually have to be glad to be allowed to do all this. Then it stands: Take all energies and don't slip down into indifference.

Then Kate Bush will make music at the age of 65?

I cannot judge that at the moment. Perhaps I will try something completely different. Though I truly love music. It gets harder every time. At the beginning, when I enter the studio, I mostly have the feeling I have to start from the beginning with learning how to sing. But it makes more and more fun to advance deeper into the thicket and to research it. You go through an enormous learning process. Nevertheless I cna imagine well to change over to someghing totally different.

To what area?

In the last two years the idea crystallized in me to make a small film.

With your own script?

I would like to write the music and to direct it. Perhaps it becomes a 20-minute-film.

Who is your model in that direction?

Difficult to say. Film is a wonderful form of expression. There are so many good films. My favourite director is Alfred Hitchcock. He was so bright. His camera settings were unique. It was like him having a camera built into his head. Many directors try to copy him even nowadays. But nobody reaches his level of ability. Like music film is a wonderful vehicle for the flight from everyday life. Or to confront people with certain themes. The art is to remain entertaining.

Will you, after a ten year break from stage, go onto tour at last?

I am honored that I am always asked for that after such a long time. Sometimes it, honestly said, annoys me, too [Isn't there a - simple - way to get rid of that annoyment?]. But it is really touching that people want to see me on stage after that long pause. Nevertheless - at the moment I have no plans for a tour. The expense would simply be too big.