**** NEVER FOR EVER INTERVIEW BOOT PART II *****

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

        This is part two of an interview boot. I posted the first part 
a while back and will post the third part whenever I get around to 
typing it! 



        I: Hm, but you mentioned the cover.  With all those sort of 
these sort of things blowing out from underneath your skirt.  I mean, 
how did that idea come about? 

        K: Well, really, it's trying to describe to people what happens 
to me.  All of us have these good and bad things, none of us are all 
good or all bad, we've got both.  And for me these black and white 
thoughts that I have - that we've depicted as swans and bats, you know 
the white and the black - they're what really make up my music.  
[Interruption] And we were trying to say that these emotions really 
spill out of me from no specific point and that was really why it was 
from the skirt, it was meant to be like...

        I: Well, that is a specific point, I mean a specific area, 
basically. 

        K: Yeah, an area, but only if you follow it up, which you can't 
do, because there is the skirt covering the body.  And really what I 
was trying to say is that these emotions are poring out of me, not from 
the mouth, not from the ears, not from any specific point.  It's just 
like a breeze that would brush the skirt or make the hair blow back, 
it's like a wind coming out.  And all these emotions that come out of 
me I channel into my music and so on the cover they're coming out of me 
and going into the album.  And with most people they'll channel the 
energies into something, it just depends what, they'll either use it on 
other people so they'll having rage and terrible tempers and such 
things, just to get rid of all these particular black emotions they're 
feeling.  And people do it in different ways, they'll put it into art 
or they'll write it down or they'll sing about it, you know.  And it's 
really just their way of expressing ourselves with all our confusion 
within us.  But it wasn't meant to be rude and we did have problems..

        I: I didn't say it was [laughs]

        K: No, but they did interpret [it] that way, if you only 
slightly go that way.  And we had to be very careful with the title 
because of that very thing.  I mean any mention of wind would be 
tragic, absolutely.  So we tried to make the title say as much about 
the transience, the whole thing of us, rather then suggesting the sort 
of breeze of emotion, because we though that it could easily be 
misinterpreted.

        I: Another of the songs was one about pop stars, rock stars, 
that have died.  Why did you want to sing about that?

        K: Well, I think that's something that a lot of musicians think 
about, that's your soul, I suppose, and the musician's music is all 
they have, it's their life.  And when you die as a body you wonder what 
happens to these things, you know, because it's nothing you can see or 
touch, will that die too?  Because it's not physical, so therefore, 
should that die?  And although there's been many theories about that, 
you know, that music never dies and people get in touch with Chopin and 
that he sends them new symphonies and that sort of thing.  And that 
also all of us have a very basic fear of dying and we're terrified of 
it, a lot of people really just don't enjoy it like we were meant to, 
it's a very natural thing, we get very frightened by it.  And the song 
is really meant to be a comfort for all the people that are afraid of 
dying, because there's a... I think it was in The Observer or some 
magazine they did a research thing where people that had had cardiac 
arrests, were theoretically dead, about 250 people all had the same 
story, which was they actually left their bodies, felt no fear, felt 
really lovely, very light.  And there was a corridor, so they'd walk 
down the corridor into this room, and in the room there'd be all there 
dead friends, like their fathers or their brothers or friends that had 
been at school.  And they're really happy, they come and greet you and 
cuddle you and then say that you have to go back.  So they walk down 
the corridor and drop back into their bodies.  And all these people say 
that since this experience they're not frightened of death, they're 
very happy, in fact they're looking forward to it.  And I thought 
that's such a comfort, if we can think of death like that of going to a 
happiness, then we needn't be frightened.  And at the same time, I 
thought it would be a lovely comfort for all of us musicians who worry 
about the music dying, and that when we die we're going to go along 
that corridor and into the room and in there there's going to be Jimi 
Hendrix and Buddy Holly.  And you just join in. 

        I:  There's no comment particularly on the amount of Rock Stars 
that seem to die at an early age or anything like that?

        K: No, I didn't think that was necessary, because I think a lot 
of people have covered that area.  But I mean it is tragic, the OD 
syndrome, especially the real heavy Rock and Roll people, but I think 
that's starting to drop off now, very few people are doing this now. 

        I: Dying.

        K: Yeah, especially from ODs, it's just not happening so much, 
which is a really positive sign.  It was much more the thing of all our 
heroes, who we like to think are still around, and they are because 
their music is still alive, so it's just a big jam in the sky. 

        I: I mean, people just sort of put it down to the pressures of 
the music business and all that sort of thing [interrupted].  The film, 
Breaking Glass, have you heard about that? 

        K: I heard about it, yes.

        I: As you probably know, it's about a girl who sorta gets taken 
into the record company and groomed for stardom.

        K: In fact they called her... isn't her name Kate in the film? 

        I: I think it is Kate!  [Both laugh] I hadn't though of that.

        K: I though that was funny when I heard that. 

        I: I mean she sort of seems to come to a rather dreadful end, 
in a way.  I mean she doesn't die, but she sort of has a nervous 
breakdown or something or the other.  I mean do you sort of, have you 
been through that sort of negative side of the music business at all.

        K: Well, I can understand why people do have nervous 
breakdowns, but I think again it's so much to do with the actual 
person, rather then actually what they're doing.  You look at people 
like KISS, you look at people like McCartney, they're so strong and 
solid and they're very happy and they're going to keep to going for as 
long as they already have because they're just solid people who are 
doing exactly what they want.  And I think that because music is a very 
emotional thing, it's very unpredictable, a lot of the people that feel 
a great tendency towards it are perhaps very hyper-sensitive, very 
uptight people, and so in many ways they're much more likely to snap 
under the pressure.  Alot of artists are temperamental, so again 
they're going to flair up or...

        I: And you had any sort of twinges of snapping at all at any 
stage so far? 

        K: Not that bad, I mean occasionally you just wonder what's 
happening to you sometimes.  Because you look at pictures of yourself 
in the press while you're sitting there in real life and sometimes it 
does become very unreal.  And when you do just want to be accepted as 
one of everyone and it's just that you love your music, the pressures 
sometimes do get too much, there's a lot happening.  Like these groups 
like Queen who tour and make albums every year, they must be under 
terrific pressure all the time, and compared to them mine is minimal, 
and yet I do feel it sometimes, I really do feel the pressure.

        I: How does it sort of effect you? 

        K: It makes me wonder if it's not running away with me, that's 
what worries me, that I'm actually losing control.

        I: But is it a sort of mental thing...

        K: It is.

        I: I mean does your mind actually go blank or something or I 
mean...

        K: It's all in the mind, and all I have to do is say to myself, 
"okay, so leave it" and then I think "well, what would you do if you 
left the business?"  Because my life is music just like in that song 
and I'm quite willing to put up with it really.  See, I don't think the 
pressures, I mean at the moment the pressures aren't on me that much at 
all, it definitely happens in phases, it's not on all the time solidly. 
 So while it's not, you recover.

        I: But at that moment have you thought to yourself then, at 
moments, "leave it then", and then thought, "no, that would be stupid"? 


        K: I've never thought it seriously, I really haven't, because I 
know that I love it too much.  And also I think I am one of those 
people that in a way, I do work well under pressure.  I think there are 
a lot of people like this, that in fact, without pressure they don't do 
anything.  And I find pressure can really help me sometimes, it gives 
you a big rush of adrenaline, and then you're off doing it, and then 
it's all done, much quicker then it would of been if you'd been very 
relaxed about it.

        I: Was that Breaking Glass thing a dig at you, do you think?

        K: I don't know.  It's interesting that they should have chosen 
that name, I mean maybe it was sort of symbolic, at that. But I don't 
think I'm going to end up like that, I certainly hope not.  I think it 
is very much to do with the character, the makeup of the character 
right from the beginning, whether you're the sort of person that does, 
like, lose your temper or you get terribly...

        I: But would it be fair to say that someone like McCartney or 
Cliff Richard would be a kind of sort of model for you in the way that 
they conduct their lives...

        K: Not a model, no, but I'd say "look how they've survived."

        I: Yes, and "I can do that too." 

        K: I think I can, I hope I can.  I do feel that most of the 
things that happened to me I feel reasonably philosophical about, and 
the thing that really matters to me is my music and my life, not my 
career, you know, my life.  And so even if the career went under me 
[???], I've still got my life, and my music.  I'll always be able to 
write music because it's something that you don't need qualifications 
for or a [??? lot for].  It's a very self-expressive thing and that 
means the most to me. 

        I: I'd like to ask you about your family a bit because it seems 
like, I mean, more then like anybody else I can think of that your 
family plays a very sort of close part in almost everything you do, at 
least closer then any person....

        K: Yeah, I think it is starting to, I don't know whether you 
could say it wa fashionable, but it is happening a little.  I mean, I 
think Gary Newman... in fact from what I know his father actually, not 
manipulates Gary, but seems to direct him in every way.  Whereas I'd 
like to think that in my case I am actually the director [ing force 
???].  And that I'm just very lucky to have a loving family that I love 
and that we've always been close and that they help me with advice, 
because I do need advice, and there are things I don't know about - I'm 
not a business woman, I know a bit about business [??? I erased part of 
my tape here!!!!!] ...no real motivations for them to want money or 
anything, because if they wanted it I'd give it to them anyway, so it's 
really a trusting thing.  And with them it's great because I could 
never handle all the stuff that comes in, I couldn't, it would blow my 
mind.  That's the sort of thing that would make me have a nervous 
breakdown because there'd just be too much in my brain to think about 
writing.

        I: Do you think you could have done it without that sort of 
support of your family, so how important is it in that sort of 
equation? 

        K: It's impossible to say, really, because, you know, it was 
how it happened.  But when I started, right at the beginning, I don't 
think the family really were that involved.  They've always been 
interested and involved mentally, but I don't think they were really 
involved physically, it was really something that evolved as we saw the 
need for it.  It wasn't as if they were there right from the beginning 
saying "you will go and make an album... NOW!", you know.

        I: Like one of these mothers in Hollywood who send there 
children off to commercials.

        K: That's right, it wasn't at all like that.  In fact, the 
family, the way I'd like to put it, is that they've just been behind me 
all the time.  And that when the need came for it to be become much 
more involved, which it didn't need to be for that year and a half, I 
had no sort of management set up, which we've now got.  I mean it's not 
management, basically just me with advice again, which is ideal for me.


        [NEXT PART one of these days!]


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