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From: rhill@netrun.cts.com (ronald hill)
Date: Sat, 08 Aug 92 15:23:06
PDT
Subject: Evening Standard by James Johnson Friday, Sept. 5 1980
The Things Kate doesn't tell mother
by James Johnson
Evening Standard
Friday, Sept. 5 1980
KATE BUSH would be less than human if she did not sometimes marvel at the attention she has received over the last three years.
She says: "Sometimes I see myself in the paper and it's hard to associate with the name Kate Bush. She is this well-known person who has almost become like a brand name like Maxwell House coffee or something. Meanwhile, I'm just working on my music and my life."
Somehow she remains an awkward personality to categorize. One newspaper has described her as Britain's top pop sexpot while a new, unauthorized biography about her life opted for the title Suburban Princess.
Even now she comes over in person as part pop star and part ordinary girl from East Welling in Kent, firmly in the south London commuter belt, while her conversation ranges between traditional pop world cliches to perceptive comment.
Her guilelessness and insistence on being eager to please almost offers a challenge to find some kind of hidden dark secret to her life. However, nothing rarely emerges.
"I often think people are looking for something in my life that they can't find," she comments. "A number of performers, I suppose, come from working-class families or their parents were divorced, perhaps that gives them the urge to go out and struggle for something.
"But basically I have always had a normal, very happy life with my family. I never went out and beat up old ladies or became an alcholic at school.
"I think the public have become conditioned to want to know who is sleeping with who, or how many marriages somebody has had, but as far as I'm concerned it's totally irrelevant. I'm really very normal and there is nothing sensational to uncover. I wouldn't talk about some private things to my mother so why should I to anybody else."
Nevertheless one still feels impelled to broach the subject of sex, especially as many of her songs seem to incorporate underlying sexual themes.
According to Kate: "I think music and love are very similar. They're both natural energies, they have the same kind of all-embracing freedom, the elation.
"The communication of music if very like making love. If you play a piano, for example, you're so united it's really a beautiful thing."
Now 22-years-old, the singer has accomplished almost everything the pop world has to offer except in the U.S.A. as yet. She has performed at the Palladium, made frequent appearances in the charts, and been given almost every major award available.
POWER PLAY
A new album due out next week has been held back for three months by EMI since they regard it with such importance that they did not want it's appearance to clash with other major releases this year by Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones.
When we arranged to meet this week one could feel the power-play of the record business grinding into action as a car whisked one off to her hotel to meet the singer on her return from a television appearance in Germany.
While she remarks that she has felt more grown up of late, she has always appeared untouched by the pressures and difficulties that can accompany fame and fortune.
"I can see why people do have nervous breakdowns and so on, but it all depends on the person rather than what you happen to be doing.
"Sometimes I have felt that I'm losing control and that it's all running away with me, but all I have to do then is say to myself 'well leave then, give it up' and I know I never would because my life is really music and I love it so much.
"I would like to survive like people like Cliff Richard or Paul McCartney. If you look at them they're so strong and solid and happy, they'll be able to go on for as long again as they have already. They're happy because they're doing exactly what they want."
One particular buffer against the outside world would seem to be the Bush family. Her father, a former family doctor, and her three [three?] brothers are involved in different levels of her career.
FAMILY AFFAIR
One brother, Paddy, plays an assortment of instruments on her new album, while Novercia Ltd., the company that has been formed to look after her interests, has no fewer then five Bush family members as directors.
"I'm lucky to have a family I love who can give me advice when I need it. I like to think of myself as director of the force, but I'm not a business woman, for example, and when it comes to legal jargon I need some help.
"They're obviously people I trust and not just motivated by money, because if they wanted some, I'd give it to them anyway.
"Right at the beginning they weren't that involved, though they were always interested. It's just been something that's evolved as there has become a need for it.
"My parents weren't keen on me giving up school at the beginning to go into singing and dancing, but once they saw I was serious about it they gave support.
"I was quite stubborn about my decision and in the end they realised it was for the best."
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"The pull and the push of it all..." - Kate Bush
Reaching Out
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