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the Reaching Out (Interviews) Table of Contents
An enigma. A recluse. A sensitive artist scared of
the limelight. Few people get close enough to get to know the real Kate Bush.
But one writer did - and he became her confidant throughout her early career...
If there is one thing that can be said with absolute certainty about Kate Bush,
it's that she has never wavered from her determination to maintain control of
her career, both creatively and professionally.
Back in 1978, when I first interviewed her just after the release of the debut
single, Wuthering Heights, which immediately launched her career into orbit, she
said: "You see people who are into the glamour and ego of it and not the work.
It has nothing to do with ego. Music is like being a bank clerk; it's still
work, only on a different channel of energy."
Nice work if you can get it, most people would agree - especially when Kate's
'job' allows her the luxury of being able to leave 12 years (sufficient time for
many artists to have a few hits and then disappear) between the release of her
previous album (The Red Shoes, in 1993) and finishing her new one, Aerial Not
that she's been working a regular nine-to-five on the new album, of course. Even
so, it's been a long time coming, and another long, long wait for her fans.
Finally, with the release of Aerial, we see that she has been busy. But the 70
minutes of understated power, ecstasy, verve and creative ambition that that
record represents is just the summary of her industry. It would be at least
equally interesting to know what music she dismissed along the way, before
finally deciding that the music on Aerial is what she wants people to hear; that
this is where Kate Bush stands musically today.
Don't be deceived by the apparent innocence of Kate Bush. Her aura might be one
of peace, love and understanding - and indeed that is probably the genuine
backbone of her personality- but over the years she has learned to apply layers
of tough veneer to protect and insulate herself and her private life from the
world outside her Inner circle'.
The Kate Bush who breezed into the interview room at EMI Records back in 1978,
all politeness and wide-eyed wonderment, had the submissive air of a singer
destined for one-hit wonderdom. However, once she started talking about her
music, her plans, her ambitions... even at that spring dawn of her career, you
soon sensed that here was someone destined for greatness.
With Wuthering Heights, her startling, singular voice - which people either
loved or loathed; there was no indifference - threw her into the spotlight and
under the gaze of a whole nation. Within days of its release, everyone in
Britain was aware of Kate Bush - or at least 'that voice', and its startling,
wailing delivery of the name 'Heathcliff. Kate was on her way.
Kate Bush's self-belief was instilled with the unstinting support of a solid
family. A very musical family, they specialised in English and Irish traditional
music and playing local folk clubs. I think that's why Kate and I got on well
from the start. I was a novice feature writer on Melody Maker then, as much as
she was a kid in wonder at making a career out of music.
(Plus, I was a raw Irish man barely off the boat, and got on with her Ma quite
well!) As a result, over the interviews that we conducted over the next few
years, in her family home, recording studios, EMI boardrooms, video sets, our
ersatz meetings and personal discussions, we seemed to be growing together.
I wanted her to succeed. She wanted me to see her succeed. I did my best... she
certainly did hers. (And she wanted me to succeed too. I launched a music
magazine once and asked her to the launch. The magazine was Metal Hammer-not
Kate's sort of thing. The launch party would be in the New Orleans Jazz Cafe, in
Beck Street, Soho. Kate wouldn't go to the party... so she arranged a private
lunch in the same venue the day before; just me and her in a corner, putting the
world to rights.)
The young Kate never performed outside the confines of her home, but learning
the piano at the age of 11, she quickly found that she could write her own
songs. She quit school at 16 with 10 O-Levels, with a particular affinity for
English and Music.
"The reason I left was that I felt I could do something more in tune with my
purpose - music," she explained. This she was able to do with the help of an
inheritance of an aunt who died. The money gave Kate the security to become her
own boss and follow her own mind.
At one time, just before leaving school, she had an ambition to become either a
psychiatrist or a social worker. Both careers made sense to her as an
alternative to her first love: "I guess it's the thinking bit," she told me,
"trying to communicate with people and help them out, the emotional aspect. It's
so sad to see good, nice people emotionally upset when they could be so happy.
"The reason I chose those sort of things is that they are, in a way, the things
I do with music. When I write songs I really like to explore the mental area,
the emotional values. Although in a way you can say that being a psychiatrist is
more purposeful than writing music, in many ways it isn't, because a lot of
people take a great deal of comfort from music. I know I do.
"It's very much a therapeutic thing, not only for me. If [people] let it into
their ears, that is all I can ask for. And if they think about it afterwards or
during it, that is even more fantastic. There are so many writers and so many
messages, to be chosen out of all of them is something very special. The
messages are things that maybe could help people, like observing the situation
where an emotional game is being played, and maybe making people think about it
again."
It was March 1978 when Kate Bush said those things. Then, she had released just
one single (albeit a very successful chart topper); her debut album, The Kick
Inside, was just about to be released. And here she was, making statements that
are as pertinent to her work today as at any time during her career. Her label,
EMI, must have caught the sweet smell of future success in the air. With the
release of her second album, 1978's Lionheart, they pushed the boat out and
rented a castle near Amsterdam for the album launch party. The next morning (for
most party guests, a very hangover-blurred one), Kate and members of her family
flew back to London by private plane to attend an awards ceremony, where she
picked up the award for best female singer, voted for in Melody Maker. It was
the first of what would be the many awards she collected throughout her career.
After that it was straight back into the studio to continue work on her third
album. When asked when the new record would be out, she answered with great
certainty: "I don't know. When it's ready- and that won't be for a while yet."
It wouldn't be the only time during her career that she would say something
would be ready "when it's ready". No matter that her record company or whoever
else might be leaning over her shoulder, trying to hurry things along.
In the studio, too, she was starting to take control. "I knew what I was talking
about in the studio; I knew what I should hear," she explained. "The reaction to
me explaining what I wanted in the studio was amusement, to a certain extent.
They were all taking the piss out of me a bit."
Kate was insecure then and I guess that she saw an ally in myself. Believe me,
rock critics even then weren't the best of friends... and she had precious few.
Lionheart wasn't the greatest of albums, but we both knew she was on the road to
something more significant, and that formed the nucleus of many of our
discussions. All she needed was a bit of faith. That came from her family, few
friends, band and odd cynical critic, like my good self.
She was acutely aware of the danger of being pigeon-holed, and mindful of the
problems it could create: "If you can get away with it and keep changing, great.
I think it should be done, because in that way you'll always have people chasing
after you trying to find out what you're doing.
And, anyway, if you know what's coming next, what's the point? If I’d really
wanted to, I guess I could write a song that would be so similar to Wuthering
Heights. But I don't. What's the point? I'd rather write a song that was really
different, that I liked, although it might not get anywhere."
Not only was Kate exposing her penchant for musical exploration rather than
standing still, she was also displaying sheer bloody-mindedness along the way.
With the track Oh England, My Lionheart, she was expecting a barrage of
criticism because of the blatant soppiness of the lyrics.
Her reasons for writing the song were simple enough: she had always liked
composer Benjamin Britten's setting of William Blake's poem Jerusalem (And did
those feet, in ancient times/Walk upon England's mountains green'), and thought
a contemporary song proclaiming the romantic beauty of England should be
written.
"A lot of people could easily say that the song [.. .My Lionheart] is soppy,"
she said in the aftermath of it receiving some severe criticism. "It's very
classically done. It's only got acoustic instruments on it and it's done...
almost madrigally, you know? I dare say a lot of people will think that it's
just a load of old slush, but it's just an area that I think it's good to cover.
Everything I do is very English, and I think that's one reason I've broken
through to a lot of countries. The English vibe is very appealing."
Kate was astonished from an early stage that her record company first of all
allowed her to have such a say over her music, and, ultimately, control over her
career. Then again, she was very insistent that she should be involved in every
facet of her career, to the point where from the very start, at the age of just
17, she had almost been self-managed, with help from friends and family.
"I've always had an attitude about managers." She confessed. "Unless they're
really needed, they just confuse matters. I often think that generally they're
more of a hindrance than a help."
Strangely, especially for someone so young, the pressure and intimidating
newness of the music business hadn't upset her at all, and she revealed shyly
that she somehow felt she had been through it all before: "I wonder if it has to
do with the concept of time in some way, in that everything you do you've done
before."
If anyone wanted or needed confirmation that the Kate Bush bandwagon had a
unique engine, revolutionary design and wheels to last, they need not have
looked any further than 1980’s Never For Ever, an album brimming with musical
inventiveness and provocative lyrics. By then Kate was sitting comfortably and
firmly in the driving seat.
Taken from that record, Breathing, Babooshka and Army Dreamers were the three
singles that confirmed her ear for the commercial without compromising her art.
The entire album was a joy. Kate Bush might have been enigmatic, but she was
also desperate to share her music with just about anyone willing to listen
without prejudice.
"I'm reaching people that have maybe had a totally different life from me and
are well ahead of me in many standards, but yet they're accepting me," she told
me around that time. "A lot of older people won't listen to pop music because
they have a biased idea of what it is.
And that's wrong, because a lot of them would really get into some of the music
that's around; it's not all punk. And if you can get music to them that they
like, then you're achieving something. You're getting into people's homes who
have been shut off from that sort of music for years. They're into their Bach:
'Bach is wonderful, but I don't like that pop music.' Maybe they do, but they're
never given the option. They're always given the music that people think they
like.
"I'd really like to think that there is no age barrier, because that's a shame.
I'd like to think that there's a message in my music for everyone. That's the
greatest reward I could get - to get different people getting into different
tracks. It really means a lot to think that I'm not just hitting on an area that
may be just identified with me; that people are actually identifying with what
the songs are about."
Kate Bush needed to be good in the studio, because by the time Never For Ever
was released she had made a subconscious decision to quit touring. It was almost
unheard of that an artist just three albums into their career should dismiss
what was seen as a vital marketing tool. Only The Beatles had done it
successfully before.
"I don't know how I'll cope with touring," she said shortly before she was due
to go on the road. As unlikely as it may sound, the only tour Kate Bush ever did
was the Lionheart tour, in 1979, with dates at London's Hammersmith Odeon and
the London Palladium.
It was a stupendous effort, with Kate determined to take her whole repertoire to
the boards-not just the music, but also dance and theatrics. Such was the scope
of the elaborate and highly ambitious production that, almost inevitably, it
wasn't without fault, and was decidedly patchy in places. As an event, however,
those rare live performances still stand as some of the highlights in the
history of live contemporary music.
Despite that, Kate felt and looked vulnerable performing live. It wouldn't take
much, one felt, to put her off performing live altogether. Sure enough, she was
devastated when her lighting director, Bill Duffield, tragically died after
falling through a trapdoor at the Palladium.
After that tour it seemed that she had made an unspoken decision. It's difficult
to escape the conclusion that her decision to permanently cease touring was
concluded with the knowledge that the scale of the production she would have
demanded would have taken an important part of her plan out of her control.
Kate thrives in a family environment, and touring would have meant adopting an
extended family, which she was not prepared to do. Which could explain why,
since then, she has thrown herself into working in the studio, and maintained an
intensely private life.
Ultimately, as she has always done, Kate Bush answers to no one but herself.
"There was only a struggle within myself," she said in one of our interviews.
"But even if your work is so important to you, it's not actually your life, it's
only part of your life. So if your work goes, you're still a human being, you're
still living; you can always get a job in Woolworth's or something.
"I suppose I would find it very hard to let go, because for me it's the only
thing that I'm here to do. I don't really know what else I could do that I would
be particularly good at. I think you can kid yourself into destiny. I have never
done another job. It's a little frightening, because it's the only thing I've
really explored, but then again, so many things are similar; they all tie in. I
really feel that what I'm doing is what everyone else is doing in their jobs.
It's really sad that pressures are put on some musicians. It's essential for
them to be human beings, because that's where all the creativity comes from, and
if it's taken away from them and everybody starts kneeling and kissing their
feet and that, they're gonna grow in the wrong areas."
I put it to her that the majority of people associate being a star with material
gains. "But it's wrong," she says. "The only reason that you get such material
gains from it is because it's so media-oriented. If it wasn't, you'd get the
same as a plumber.
"I worry that it's going to burn out, because I didn't expect it to happen so
quickly," she said in one of our first meetings. "For me it's just the
beginning. I'm on a completely different learning process now. I've climbed one
wall, and now I've got another 15 to climb. And to keep going while you're in
such demand is very hard. It would be different if I had stayed unknown, because
then it would be progressing."
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"The pull and the push of it all..." - Kate Bush
Reaching Out
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Marvick - Hill
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Mapes
Fitzgerald-Morris
Grepel - Love-Hounds
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