Cloudbusting -- Kate Bush In Her Own Words

1969-1974

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] (1982, dreaming debut)

I've been writing songs since I was a kid and my family thought I should make a record.

But I didn't think for one minute it would be such a success. (1978, A Tonic For The Doctor's Daughter)

You were writing songs then, from way back. How old were you when you started writing songs?

About 11, I think.

And mostly late at night, I read, or just these days.

Well, it always was, really. It seems to be the time of day that things gather, you know?

Your mind really works, then?

Yeah, I'll wake up about 11 o'clock. I'm sorta sleepy all day, then about 11 I really wake up. (1979, Ask Aspel)

We lived in a farmhouse. I used to play hymns on an old organ in the farm until it was eaten out by mice. (1980, Sunday Times)

How old were you when you were first interested in music?

Since I was a kid, I mean I've been interested in music since I was about five. But when I was about eleven I actually started writing songs.

Could you play an instrument when you were eleven, then?

I was learning the violin and I didn't like it and I used to go to the piano as a sort of rebellion against the violin and I'd take it out on the piano.

And you'd actually started writing at that young age? Were your family musical, did they sort of encourage you?

Yeah, my brothers were, but I'd used to sort of lock myself away, I was quite lonely as a kid, so I used to use my piano as a friend. (1978, TisWas)

Was your family, in one way, making you creative, or...?

Yeah, I think so. I think, I mean they're very responsible for me entering this path of life. Without.. especially my brothers, they were very musical. I mean, all the time there'd be music in the house, from the time I can first remember. And to have that around you is bound to effect and either take you right away from it or make you jump into it. And I obviously joined in, because it was fascinating for me. And we used to sing things and...

What was your father doing?

He's a doctor, but he used to play the piano. He's musical, too. It seems to run in the family.

And even if you've been 11 years old, there was no other way to go then in music?

I don't know about that. I mean it was definitely the thing that I felt very deeply. But I guess that I felt that I should have some sort of career in mind that was normal, because it's the expected thing. But I don't think my heart was really in it, I think I was truly into music all the time, but I didn't really want to allow it.

And your parents, they told ``you have to learn something serious that makes your living?"

Yeah, I think they were concerned that I should have a future that at least would be stable, and the music business is probably one of the most unstable businesses you can even dream of getting into. But I think they realized how much music means to me, and how much I get out of it, and for them, for any parents the best thing is to see your children happy. (1980, Kate Bush In Concert)

Have you ever saw a risk in this profession of your daughter?

Dr. Bush: What sort of risk?

I mean a risk to make a living out, this show business.

Dr. Bush: No, not really. I always had great confidence that she would make it, from when she was about 14 I think. Risk, well of course there's risk, but I thought there was... I'm her greatest fan I think from when she was very young and hadn't got much of a voice. I always knew there was something so original, that I was sure she would make it. (1980, kate bush in concert)

Paddy, surely you're not going to mind talking about your sister right in front of her like this. When was it you began to become aware not simply that kate was musically gifted, but that she was also a force to be reckoned with?

Paddy: Right from the word go. She was about ten years old at the time.

And did you and perhaps jay attempt to cultivate this gift in the hope that she might one day bear fruit?

Paddy: Oh no, no, it cultivated itself. To cultivate music you have to spend a lot of time by yourself, making a lot of very strange sounds over and over again. It's not the sort of thing you go hammering into others. When there's a family all in one house and you're getting your music together, normally the others in the family close the doors and try to keep the sound out. And when you've got several people playing instruments in the same house, well, things can get a bit complicated! I remember having things thrown at me during the early days because I was playing the same tune for six months. It would get people down! And when kate began working on the piano, she'd go and lock herself away and wind up spending five or six hours, seven days a week, just playing the piano.

You mean by now she was about thirteen or fourteen?

Paddy: Yeah, and wow! I mean, at the age of thirteen or fourteen she was spending tons and tons of time writing, but starting in fact when she was about ten.

And did this begin to assume almost pathological proportions and start alarming the family?

Paddy: Absolutely!

Kate: Pathological!

Paddy: Yeah! But no! Because of the heavy irish tradition in the family, I think it was escapism on her part. Our mother is irish and I think kate maybe felt, you know, that there was a slight obligation to appease the irish spirit. And somewhere out of my mother's imagination came the idea that kate should learn the violin. It seems to be a tradition that the violin is forced upon people. I mean, there are few who take it up of their own volition! And kate was certainly one of those who only took it up under pressure, she didn't really like it very much. So the piano was a kind of way of exploring music in dimensions diametrically opposite to what the violin must have represented to her. Escapism, pure escapism! You know, the command would be, ``go and practise on that violin, kate,'' but the piano music came out instead! I think perhaps we bushes are a bit like that... So yes, her piano playing was in the first place a direct reaction to straight music as we knew it, or as she knew it, at the time. The sort of style which she evolved in her piano playing and singing were direct opposites of all the kinds of straight music which she was being fed right then. Pure escapism, and very beautiful!

But then, kate, did your family soon come to accept what you were doing?

Yes, I used to go to my father and to Jay for opinions on my songs and their feedback was very important to me. Jay is a writer, and he's written some really beautiful things, and altogether he's been a big influence on me. It was through his help that I got my first contact in the music business, which led to my break, and now he deals with the business side of my work. And, besides putting lots of good ideas my way, he's introduced me to a lot of artists who probably otherwise I would never have heard of, and of course hearing new music can be a very big influence.

Going back to the piano, surely your playing didn't evolve in a musical vacuum?

Well, when I was about twelve, that sort of age, I was such a big fan of Elton John. I think really he was the first musical hero I had in that I aspired so much to what he was doing. I was just sort of starting to muck around writing songs, and then I saw this guy and he was the only one I'd ever seen who wrote songs and accompanied himself on the piano. And his playing was brilliant, and still today I think his playing is fantastic. It's always so right for his songs. (1985, Musician)

When I was about 11, I just started poking around at the piano and started making up little songs.

When I was 14, I started taking it seriously, and began to treat the words to the songs as poetry. (1978, TV Week)

You never sing a song straight. Are there singers whom you studied in developing your own style of phrasing?

I would really be missing the point if I didn't mention Bryan Ferry, because I thought he was the most exciting singer that I'd heard. His voice had limitations, but what he managed to do with it was beautiful, I mean, b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l. For me it covered the whole emotional spectrum, and I just couldn't get enough of it. You know, the early Roxy albums, with this beautiful voice and lyrics, and Eno there in the background - magic!

But kate, I'm very curious. I know you grew up listening to artists like bowie, bolan, dave edmunds, roxy music, elton john, all that sort of stuff. Yet in my opinion you're so much more musically eloquent than people like that. Your music has a depth and complexity, also a certain opulence, which aren't easily attributable to pop music and which suggests to me that perhaps there are a quite different set of aesthetic values underlying it that you've assimilated somewhere along the way, perhaps even deriving from classical music or opera.

I think in a way that classical music is, if you like, a sort of superior form of music because it has so much space for the listener to move around in. I think as soon as you have words in a song, it's somewhat restricting for the listener. And I really love listening to classical music because, actually, I find it quite inspiring for my work. So maybe because I love those things so much, I suppose they do tend to rub off on me...

I see, so you think they just rub off. It's not as if you are extrapolating classical formulae into your own music with any knowing intent?

Well, I do think that a lot of classical music is so good that it challenges you. When I hear something really beautiful, I think, wouldn't it be great if I could write something even just a little bit like that! So I'm sure that's what it's all about. It's not really copying but, rather, wanting to produce that same kind of, well - vibe. To try and get the same kind of atmosphere which that music creates when you listen to it.

Did you have much of a formal education in music? Are you capable of comprehending your own work in terms of music theory?

Well, I do know what chords are, basically, but I've not really had any classical training at all. My knowledge of theory comes from when I learned the violin when I was little, and that's about it.

Paddy: You see, really our roots are in the oral tradition. I mean, that's the way music is carried on in our family.

Kate: Yes, I think there are an awful lot of major influences deriving from traditional music, especially english and irish folk music. 'cause when I was very little my brothers were devoted to traditional music and it's something I've always loved and still love. Especially irish music, which I love very much. I think I was always impressed by the words in folk songs. I mean, even when I was very little I was aware that the songs had great words. They're always stories, each song is a story, not like the lyrics of most pop songs.

And did you yourself play things like accordions and concertinas?

No, Paddy used to have a big collection of them and occasionally I used to sneak up to his room and have a quick play when he wasn't there. But really, Pad would always play those sort of things, and I always stuck to the piano.

On different album tracks you've featured not only irish musicians but also an array of other ethnic sounds. Does this betray a lot of your own listening? Are you listening to a lot of pretty far-out stuff, music for example of aboriginal, oriental, or comparable ethnic origin, and deliberately seeking to integrate that into your own music?

No, I don't think I am really. There was a period when I used to listen to certain ethnic music. But I don't think I was ever really an avid listener. Paddy is much more of an avid listener to ethnic stuff, he listens to it nearly all the time. (1985, Musician)

Could you talk about your brothers for a bit and how they've affected you in you're being a creative person, not just like in the sounds that have come out on the album?

We're a very close family and they're my friends. My parents as well as my brothers are friends. And I think they're a very creative family. And I think being brought up in a situation where music is there, people are being creative, it feels natural for you to do that to. So I think that was a very big opening for me at a very young age to have that kind of energy around me. And in fact, the energy that I'm in now.

And I think they have been a very big influence on me. When I was very little it was their music that I used to listen to before I got my own record player and then could play my own music. And I think older brothers, sisters can't help but be an incredible influences. (1985, MTV)

On the music, whom do you admire. To come back to when you have been 11, 12, 13 or something. Whose was the person who admired... That you admired?

When I was that young, it was really the music that my brothers played and I'd pick out the stuff that I like and listen to it with them. And...

What kind of music [Did] they play...

They were into King Crimson, at that time, and Pink Floyd, and Blind Faith, Fleetwood Mac, that sort of thing. They were the first, and the Stones of course, these were really the first bit of contemporary music I was getting into. And the Beatles, obviously.

When you created your personal tastes, who was [Your favorite] people?

I think probably a little of everyone, especially traditional music, because that was what was happening in this house when I was tiny. And I think that's...

What kind of traditional music?

English folk music, Irish folk music. My brothers were into playing it. And I think that had a very strong effect on me. (1980, Kate Bush In Concert)

Well I used to listen to a lot of singles that my brothers had bought that weren't out when I was there. Songs from the early sixties that actually I wouldn't have heard had it not been for their collection. And I suppose I started buying all the singles that were out, I was very singles orientated. All the hits. [Laughs]

So you liked the singles. Were there like any that you can remember that you still have now?

Well one of the first records I ever bought was called ``They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Ha'' by Napoleon the 14th. I thought that was great! I thought it was really interesting. I suppose it was one of the first rap records really. [Laughs] I think the first album I bought was Bridge Over Troubled Water. I liked the songs on that. I think again that's been a big attraction for me. I'm sure stimulated by traditional music, the thing of the structure of songs and having a story, it does attract me. (1985, MTV)

When you were writing the songs at that time, did you feel you were writing songs that were different in any way, or did you just feel that they were, you know - they were your songs?

It's very hard to remember how I felt at the time, but it was something I enjoyed doing so immensely. It was my release from school, and, you know, if I couldn't go out and it was a wet day, or there wasn't anything good on television, that would be my favourite place to go: to the piano.

And start writing songs?

It was a very important relationship and still is to me. I found something that I don't think I've ever really found since, when I first started writing songs: that I could actually create something out of nothing, and it was a very special discovery - I think if you are lucky enough to make it at a young age, as I was. (1985, Homeground)

How young did you discover your musical ability?

I'm not sure if that's something you discover yourself, really. Since I was a kid, I've always been singing and playing the piano, and it was really only through the things that have been happening to me recently that I realized that I could actually do it as a living. (1979, Swap Shop)

Music and words used to come together at the same time. There's something warm and friendly in music. (????,AVD)

Actually, when I was in the school choir I couldn't sing the high notes at all. I taught myself as sort of an exercise. (????,SH)

I started writing songs when I was 15.

At that stage, I tended not to tell my boy friends about my music. My family and my close friends knew about it and that was OK. But I didn't want anyone else to share it.

You see if I had told a boy friend about my songs they might have thought I was different from the other girls. They might have laughed at me. (1983, Sunday Mirror)

They'd think I was cleverer than them or something daft like that - I was a threat to their masculinity. (1989, Q)

I never went out and beat up old ladies or became an alcoholic at school. (????,TWS)

I think I was quite a shy person. It was just a straight school. There wasn't much concern about self-expression in an artistic way. There were music and dancing classes, but there wasn't very much concentration on that - it was much more on maths, biology. I think I learnt a few things from school which were useful, but generally it wasn't an environment that I felt I could express myself in - because I was shy, I think. (????,TWS)

I found it wasn't helping me. I became introvert. I guess it was the teacher's system, the way they react to pupils, and I wasn't quite responsive to that. (1978, March, Melody Maker)

I was unhappy at school and couldn't wait to leave. (????,AVD)

It's difficult for me to go back that far but I was quite shy. I was just a girl growing up. I learnt a few things from school which were useful, but generally it wasn't an environment I felt I could express myself in. It was just a straight school. (????,AVD)

There appear to be two major steps that influenced you as a singer:that your family's interest in music inspired you to teach yourself the piano, and that after securing your first recording contract you started mime and dance lessons.

Yes, that's right. My father played the piano, and we also had an old harmonium in a barn next to our house, where I'd spend a lot of time just pedalling away hymns. I really loved their melodies and harmonies and worked out for myself that a chord was made from a minimum of three notes, and that by changing one of these notes you could get completely different chords to work with the new note. In a way, that started my interest in the way things could sound and feel very different just by putting different chords to a tune. As the harmonium got eaten up by mice, less and less of the stops that selected the sounds worked, so naturally I turned my attention to playing the piano.

I couldn't read music at all. It was really a question of having a logical approach, once I knew where middle C was. Even though I wasn't much good at maths at school, I could see the logic of how the piano was working, and got on with it myself very well. I've now been playing the piano for many years, and I really did start off in the most basic way. After a couple of years I'd got a slight style, and since then I've simply developed it more, just by writing and then practising playing the songs. Often, I'd be writing songs beyond my technique which would stretch my playing even further.

In the early days, did you write the lyrics first?

I usually started off with the tunes, and used library books for a source of lyrics, but I couldn't get on too well with the restriction of always fitting the music to the words. So I started making my own lyrics up alongside the music. (1982, Electronics Music Maker)

Discovery of music personally for me came when one day my father took me into the piano and showed me the scale of C on the keyboard. And I couldn't believe that this was how this worked, that it was so logical, that there was actually a plan to the keyboard that was so easy to see, that was like playing one finger on the notes and then singing that tune. And then gradually I got to to understand about chords, and once I hit chords that was really it, you know. This was the most exciting thing in my life, the chord.

My family are very musical, and as long as I can remember there was always music playing in the house. (1989, VH-1)

Right. Now you mentioned your family. Did you, have you always had a lot of support from them from a very early age?

Yes.

Was it encouraged the music?

Yes. I think so.

Cos your dad taught you piano, didn't he?

He didn't teach me piano, but he was definitely the encouraging force, when I was writing at that time. and whenever I'd written a song, I'd always go and ask him to come and listen to it. And he was brilliant, totally encouraging, and in the right way in that he wasn't pushing me into it, which I think, especially for children, is the wrong thing to do, cos they rebel against that automatically.

Something which you did in school at the time?

I don't know if I was rebellious, but there were certain things I didn't enjoy being taught. (1985, Profile 6)

Instead of going out to play with other children I used to play the piano - it was my way of talking, of expressing myself. (1980, Smash Hits)

For as long as she can remember she has been toying around with the piano, much, I reckoned, to her parents' chagrin. Can you imagine living with a nine-year-old [Sic - 11 year old] who insists on battering away on said instrument, wailing away at the top of her lungs in accompaniment?

Well, they weren't very encouraging in the beginning, they thought it was a lot of noise. When I first started, my voice was terrible, but the voice is an instrument to a singer, and the only way to improve it is to practice. (1978, The Blossoming Ms. Bush)

I started writing, I suppose, when I was about 11, and it is something that has gradually progressed into what I am doing now. I think the foundations have been laid from the minute you step out of the womb, from the environment and yourself. I used to write poetry like everyone else did in English classes. Everyone was free to read them - we always read each other's work. But people at school didn't know that I was writing songs. (????, Radio Documentary, from AVD)

I didn't think I was going to do it for a profession. It was fun, something I really enjoyed. I spent most of my time create scenarios for songs. At 16 I had gotten to the point where my songs were presentable. That was after five years of writing ballads and slow songs like `` The Man With The Child In His Eyes.'' (1984, Pulse!)

I had such an excess of emotion that I needed to get it out of my system and writing was how I did it. (????,AVD)

I wasn't a daydreamer. Writing songs and poetry is putting into words and music my real feelings. (1982, Kerrang!)

Every night for a couple of hours I'd sing and play. When I was 15 my family though it would be a good idea to maybe meet some people in the music business and see if I could get some response from my songs... I think they were pleased to see I had something I could release myself in. They neither encouraged me or discouraged me, they just let me be myself, which is something I'll always thanks them for.

Enter kate's brother, who had a friend who'd been in the record business for a couple of years. He came around to listen to me. I put twenty to thirty of my songs on a tape and he'd take it to record companies. Of course there was no response; You wouldn't be able to hear a thing, just this little girl with a piano going ``yaaaa yaaaa'' for hours on end... (the songs) weren't that good. They were ok, but... (1978, Trouser Press)

I wondered how the artiste of the early days differed from the current one.

I could sing in key but there was nothing there. It was awful noise, it was really something terrible. My tunes were more morbid and more negative. That was a lot of people's comment: they were too heavy. But then a lot of people are saying that about my current songs. The old ones were quite different musically, vocally, and lyrically. You're younger and you get into murders...

Rejection was merely a small delay, though. Along came david gilmour of pink floyd. Dave was doing his guardian angel bit and scouting for talent. He'd already found a band called unicorn in a pub and was helping them. He came along to see me and he was great, such a human, kind person - and genuine. He said, ``it looks as if the only way you can do it is to put at most three songs on a tape and we'll get them properly arranged.'' he put up the money for me to do that, which is amazing. No way could I have afforded to do anything like that. EMI heard it and I got the contract. (1978, Trouser Press)

Gaffaweb - Kate Bush - REACHING OUT - Trouser Press - "Kate Bush Gets Her Kicks" by Jon Young - July 1978

I was really nervous about meeting Dave, but he was so nice and kind..

He told me to go into a studio to make a finished demo tape and then to select the three best songs and to offer them to a record company. He took me into Air London studios and put up all the money for everything. It must have cost a fortune, but he didn't want anything out of it. (1978, TV Week)

The next bit's real fairy tale stuff. One day, along comes this friend of my brothers. He worked in the record business himself and thought he might be able to help me make some contacts. Well, he knew Pink Floyd from Cambridge and he asked Dave Gilmour down to hear me

I was absolutely terrified at the prospect of meeting him, but he was so sweet and kind, so human. Well, I did a few songs for him and he decided that the best thing for me to do would be to go into the studio and make a proper demonstration tape with arrangements and a producer. Subsequently Dave put up the money for me to go into the studios and cut three tracks, two of which are included on the album. And it was that tape which got me the EMI contract. (1978, Record Mirror)

I was about fifteen. My family thought it would be interesting to see if we could get some of my songs published, I'd written loads of songs. I just used to write one every day or something. And through a friend of the family who knew Dave Gilmour, we made a contact for him to come and hear some of my songs. At that time, he was sort of scouting for talent, looking for bands that he could produce or become involved in or just encourage. And I became one of the people that he was visiting. I think he liked the songs sufficiently to feel that it was worth him actually putting up money for me to go in and professionally record the tracks, because all my demos were just piano vocals and I had, say like 50 songs that were all piano vocals. And he felt, quite rightly, that the record company would relate to the music much in a more real way if it was produced rather than being demoed. So he put up the money, we went into the studio, recorded three tracks, and I got a recording contract from that. (1985, MTV)

Could you, give us some more details about that very first session with dave gilmour in 1973 [The other quotes refer to a latter session in 1975], and [??? Inaudible], do you know the actual date [??? Inaudible]...

Someone here would probably know that better than me...

[Laughter.]

I'm terrible with dates....1973, my God, isn't that a long time ago? No wonder people think I'm like, nearly fifty.

[Laughter.]

Well that was, uh, that was really the turning point, I suppose. That was the first time I was putting tracks down professionally. Dave Gilmour at that time was trying to help a band called Unicorn, who were putting out their first album, and he was good enough to produce it. And we went to Dave's for a day, basically. And the bass player and drummer from Unicorn sat down and we just kind of put a few songs together. I remember it was the first time I'd ever done an overdub with the keyboard - I put this little electric piano thing down, and I remember thinking, ``Ooh! [Laughing] I like this!''

[Laughter from audience.]

And, well, I mean really it was because of those tracks that I then went on to do the tracks which were then used - two of which were used to go on the first album. As far as I remember the tracks we did with this session in '73... There was a track called `` Passing Through Air", which I think went on a b-side -''

"Army dreamers''

No, I hadn't written `` Army Dreamers'' ..

B-side of ``army dreamers''

B-side... Oh - oh, was it?

[Laughter.]

The other track was, um... It had a couple of titles...

"Maybe."

Yes, it was, ``Maybe'' There was an - ``Humming", it was called, as well. I see you've heard of all... But, I just can't believe how long ago it was. My god! (1990 Kate Bush Con)

I suppose I must have been fifteen, and my family felt it would be interesting to see if we could get some of my songs published. Through a friend of the family we made contact with Dave Gilmour who came and listened. At that time he scouting for talent, and I think he felt I was sufficiently talented to put up the money in order to properly produce three tracks and through those tracks I got a recording contract. (????, TWS)

A friend of the family, Rickie Hopper, introduced us. Absolutely terrified and trembling like a leaf, I sat down and played for him. But Dave liked my songs very much. He put up some money, sent me into the studio to make three really well-produced tracks. I did `` The Man With the Child in His Eyes", `` The Saxophone Song", plus some obscure thing which ended up on a B side somewhere. (1989, You)

It's all thanks to Dave. He's person. So generous. So ... yummy! He did it out of love, you know. I paid the money back, of course, eventually - but I couldn't have done it without his backing. For me to work with him on this album [The Sensual World] was a real honour. (1989, You)

It must have been [An honor] for a gauche south london schoolgirl to be heard by one of the world's most respected rock guitarists. I don't know. I wasn't really into pink floyd at the time. (1989, You)

He was looking for different acts and my friend said to him, ``Come and have a listen.'' They came down and worked on a few songs with me. I couldn't afford anything like paying for a studio so Dave put up the money. We put three tracks down, two of those tracks went on the first album. (1989, AP)

He came down to listen to some of my songs when I was 16. I was very, very nervous. He liked the songs and we tried approaching record companies. Nothing happened and he actually put up the money for me to go into a proper recording studio and record three songs. They were played to EMI and they signed me. He has been there for me ever since. I guess in some way I see him as a guardian angel, looking after me. (1989, Network)

You were discovered some ten years ago by david gilmour of pink floyd. And when you say discovered, we can't put that to lightly - he got you your first recording contract.

Yes he did. He really put up the money for me to turn demos into master tapes that then the record company could recognize as songs rather than demos. And really, without him having put that money up I probably wouldn't have had the break so early for sure.

It would have happened though.

[Laughs] thank you. (1985, live at five)

I would like to talk to you about the beginning of kate bush's career in regards to you. How did you first meet her?

Dave gilmour: A friend of mine has a friend who told my friend that his sister was very talented. This friend of mine came to me and said, ``my friend has a very talented sister'' and would I listen to her. And I said ``sure", so I listened to her. I thought she was very good.

I did some recording at her house, her parent's house, and then I had her up to my studio and recorded some things. I decided that the way she sang and played the piano, just on its own, was not going to be very effective for convincing A men at record companies of her value. So, I decided to pick some songs out of all the songs that she had and go in and record them properly in a recording studio with an engineer, a producer, an arranger and an orchestra. I organized all that, chose some songs and recorded three tracks which I then played to the EMI people over here and they made a deal with her and signed her up. It's quite simple. The three tracks that I had recorded, I sold them to EMI as well, and two of them were on her first album. One was ``The Man With the Child in His Eyes'' and one was called ``The Saxophone Song''

You are credited as the executive producer on these tracks. [Dave indicates affirmative]. What was the song that she played when you first heard her, when you first went to her house?

Dave: I can't remember. I know that one of the first songs that I noted was `` the man with the child in his eyes", our of many songs that she had written. She was only 14, I think, when I met her, maybe just about 15.

Did you see that there was potential, commercial talent, or just artistic potential?

Dave: I didn't realize how commercially successful she might be. I thought of her more really, I suppose, in the terms of someone like joni mitchell; The level of a lady who's very talented, but would appeal to a more esoteric audience. But she had different ideas. (c.1983, chez david gilmour interview)

Dave gilmour: I was the only person willing to put money into believing in her. That's all it boils down to. I didn't put an awful lot of time into her, and that was two and a half years ago, anyhow. (1978, the amazing pudding)

What would you be if you weren't a singer?

Oooh, dear. Probably working at Woolworths, something like that. I don't know. [Long pause and then kate laughs]

Weird. That's very good, you just floored her completely. [Inaudible] when you were at school were you aiming at a career of any sort?

Well, yes. I was really into being a physiatrist. [Everybody laughs] I mean it's really good I never made it, you know, yeah.

Well that's a bit of an amazing answer, really. It's not the sort of thing you just drop by the side saying ``well, I was going to be a physiatrist.'' when the brain surgery fell through. [Everybody laughs] (1979, swap shop)

Gaffaweb / Cloudbusting / Story / 1969-1974