FEATURE:
The Kate Bush Interview Archive
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 1993’s The Red Shoes
1994: Laura Dern (SPIN)
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I have done a short run…
IN THIS PHOTO: Laura Dern
of features where I ranked the tracks on Kate Bush’s studio albums (most of them anyway). I have written about her interviews and how, over the past couple of albums, the questions people have been asking are a little routine and samey. It can be frustrating hearing the same questions asked – and, unsurprisingly, the same answers are given. If you have an interview slot with Kate Bush, surely you will take full advantage. It is important to promote what she has released, though one can do that in a unique way and not ask the same invariable questions that everyone else will. Because of that, I want to go back and highlight a few interviews from the archives that really struck me. Through the years, I have brought many into various features. The reason I want to highlight an article from SPIN that features an interview between Kate Bush and Laura Dern in 1994 is because it is very interesting. Dern is a fantastic U.S. actor and she is someone I respect a lot. There have not been too many cases of actors/musicians sitting down to interview Bush. I think that they approach an interview differently to someone else in the media. I think it can also be less formal when you have someone like Laura Dern question Kate Bush. The interview highlights some interesting revelations. There is clear respect between the two. It seemed like quite a big deal for Dern – as one would naturally imagine! I am not going to source the entire interview. There were a few questions that I wanted to highlight. Before that, there is a little introduction:
“For the March 1994 issue of SPIN, we asked actress Laura Dern to interview Kate Bush. The two discussed Bush’s 1993 album The Red Shoes, her directorial debut The Line, The Curve and The Cross, and the surprising similarities between the two artists’ creative processes.
With the release of her new album, The Red Shoes, Kate was in the U.S. for her first visit since 1989. She and I have both recently completed our directorial debuts on short films—hers, a 50-minute feature, The Line, The Curve and The Cross, which links six of the new songs through a fairy tale.
“The thing I remember when I was a teenager and saw The Red Shoes was the struggle of this woman’s: having to choose between being a dancer and being with her man. That the passion for love and the passion for dance couldn’t coexist really affected me. I don’t know what you think about that.
I hope to believe—well, I hope to believe a lot of things—but I hope to believe that we can be consummate artists as women or revolutionaries, or whatever women want to be, and also have love, not only for ourselves but from a partner.
I have to believe that too. It’s just not fair to think that it’s not possible. But I suppose the consuming nature of being obsessed with one’s work, or one’s art, is obviously something that we probably all struggle with to try to find a balance.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at a fan convention in 1994
In interviews, people always refer to you as this great perfectionist. Do you agree with that? Do you perceive yourself that way?
Well, if perfectionist means taking a long time, then I would agree with it. But I really don’t think that it’s possible to make things perfect, really. In some ways, there’s almost an attempt to try to achieve something that is quite imperfect. Do you know what I mean? And to be able to find a way of leaving it with certain raw edges, so that the heart doesn’t go out of it. I don’t think of myself as a perfectionist at all.
Do you struggle to balance your desire to keep a raw, spiritual edge to your music and a need to make the music accessible? Do you feel confident enough to just express what you believe and hope the audience catches up?
There’s kind of a driving force involved in the whole process of putting music together, to ultimately ending up with a finished album. I think there’s a lot of stuff that I don’t even question until other people come in and listen to the music, and it’s almost like suddenly you’re listening to things through other people’s ears. I suppose that’s when it gets a bit difficult.
Sometimes I’m aware that things were actually a little more personal than I’d realized. But I suppose I feel if, when you are actually creating something, it feels kind of honest, it feels good, then that’s the point where the intention matters, and then from that point onwards it’s just a matter of being brave enough to actually let it go.
Have you ever gone back and either thought about songs you’ve written, or listened to your music from years before, and learned something you hadn’t recognized, or understood something that at the time you didn’t understand?
I’m not sure I’ve ever reinterpreted something, but I have definitely been able to hear things in a different way from how I did at the time. I very rarely listen to any of my old music; it’s the last thing I ever want to do. But occasionally I end up in a situation where I do, and if enough time has gone by, I can actually hear how I would do things differently.
I’ve always wanted to ask you if you have interests in the shadow side, in understanding the repressed self—things we are in denial about.
Creative art is an awfully positive way of channeling the shadow side, and I think it’s much more healthy to explore it and have fun with it within the boundaries of art. I’m not sure that it’s something terribly good to go looking for. Do you know what I mean? I think it’s actually something that ends up coming to you anyway”.
Since that 1994 interview, Bush has reinterpreted songs of hers – her 2011 album, Director’s Cut saw her reapproach tracks from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes. There are great interviews from every period of Kate Bush’s career, though I have a fascination with 1993/1994. Bush was very busy then, though she would step away from the spotlight. It wasn’t until 2005’s Aerial that we received another album, although she did appear in public/at events prior to that. I have always been curious as to how Bush felt about The Red Shoes shortly after completing it and whether it was quite a stressful process. The interview with Laura Dern is interesting and one that I wanted to bring in. It was a rare chance for a high-profile fan to sit down with someone they respected and ask questions journalists might not have. As we can see with the SPIN interview above, a Kate Bush interview is…
ALWAYS a treasure.