FEATURE:
The Kate Bush Interview Archive
1980: MisK
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I am not sure…
who exactly conducted the interview that I am spotlighting today. In this run of Kate Bush features, I am looking back on great interviews through the years. Bush is such a compelling interview subject, that there are dozens to choose from! As I love 1980’s Never for Ever (her third studio album) so much, I wanted to look at a 1980 interview from MisK (I am not sure whether the main image is from 1980; it is around that time). Supplied by this indispensable source of Kate Bush interviews, the interview appears to have been conducted in London. It is a fascinating interview I want to quote sections from. I am not going to put it all here – I would urge people to check out the whole thing. Never for Ever was the album where Bush co-produced alongside Jon Kelly. It was her first big production credit (she assisted Andrew Powell on 1978’s Lionheart); Never for Ever is he most experimental and diverse album to that point. Although some of the questions are overly-personal and intrusive, there are some interesting exchanges:
“I: One has to begin at the beginning, Kate, and I can't help but realize that I can't make sense of the title of the album: Never For Ever. What does it mean?
K: Well, it's really meant to be reflective of all the things that happen to us all the time ourselves, we're never for ever, death is inevitable, things always pass, good and bad things, so when you're feeling really desperate you know that it's not going to last for ever. It's really saying that everything is transient - ourselves and everything that we are in is transient and we should really remember that because I think to remind you of that makes you think more.
I: During the time since you've made your last album, have you had reason to feel that way?
K: I think it's something I've always felt, probably since I started creating. I think once you start exploring the creative areas you become aware of how transient things are, especially one's writing, one's art. You become very aware of the fact that that won't be around for a long time - maybe, but very unlikely - and so that's something in your mind a lot of the time.
I: And do you feel sometimes that if I don't put this down on paper now I'll forget it and it will be gone for ever?
K: Yes - yes, I think you have to catch a moment when it's happening. It's like not snapping up opportunities when they wave at you - you can so often let things go by you and when you're old you think, wow, I let all those things go by me. You must try to act in the moment, though it's very hard.
I: Does that annoy you at any time - do you feel that you're not the master of your own time - if you get the muse you have to obey it then and there?
K: Yes, but unfortunately a lot of the time the muse is obstructed by other forces. I'll be very busy doing something else and although it's calling me I can go. That's something that I'm very aware of, the fact that when you do feel that there is something there, almost like a gift, I think you sometimes worry that you abuse it or neglect it and that it might go away. I think one of an artist's great fears is of drying up and I think probably anyone who writes must have such fear inside.
I: In "The Wedding List" you have a character named Rudy - is that named after anybody you'd read about in literature or real life?
K: No, not at all. It was really the name that just happened as the words were coming with the song and so I didn't fight it - I just accepted it.
I: Was it your idea to invite Paddy on the album or did he say to you hey, sis, can I be on it?
K: No, it's very much my idea from a long way back to involve Paddy. He's been on all the albums but not really featuring quite so much as on this one. I think one of the great things about this album is that it left much more room for people to do things than on the other ones - it was that direction, much more experimental, exploring. And Paddy played a big part with all the instruments exploring little pieces and areas, absolutely invaluable. Very like animation, his instruments - they just put a little bit of red on here and a little bit of green down there and complete it.
I: Has a great effort gone into the sound of this album, not just the music but the sound?
K: Yes. I thinks sounds are so important because that is what music is - it is the sound of the music - and the way sounds mix and move together is incredible. It is again so similar to colours and to have a pure colour and pure sounds are very similar things. In many ways I think we saw a lot of the sounds a visual things - this is the way I often interpret music, I see it visually, and so in many ways you'd interpret a mountain in the picture into a very pure guitar sound or whatever. I think everyone was very aware of sounds and the animation of it and how a certain sound could imply so much more at one piece in the song.
I: You are the co-producer of this album with Jon Kelly. I suppose this then was your job in that regard, the direction of the sound?
K: Yes. The whole thing was so exciting for me, to actually have control of my baby for the first time. Something that I have been working for and was very nervous of too, obviously, because when you go in for the first time you really wonder if you are capable - you hope you are. Every time that we tried something and it worked it just made you feel so much braver. Of course it doesn't always work, but everyone helping and concentrating on the music, it's such a beautiful thing, it really is a wonderful experience - everyone's feelings going into the songs that you wrote perhaps in a little room somewhere in London, you know, it's all coming out on the tape.
I: The song after that, "Blow Away", is also about musicians, this in a different way - It's about a member of your band, perhaps fictitious, perhaps real life, who wonders where the music goes when he goes. Is there such a person who mentioned that thought to you.
K: No, there isn't such a person who actually said it, but I'm sure I know so many people that think that. I myself do feel that sometimes and it just seemed for someone in my band fictionally to open up to me, made it a much more vulnerable statement. It was really brought on by something - I think it was The Observer. They did an article on all these people who when they'd had cardiac arrests had left their bodies and travelled down a corridor into a room at the end. In the room were all their dead friends that they'd known very well and they were really happy and delighted. Then they'd tell the person that they had to leave and they'd go down the corridor and drop back into their body. So many people have experienced this that there does seem to be some line in it, maybe. It's some kind of defense hysteria, I don't know, but they felt no fear and in fact they really enjoyed it. Most of them have no fear of dying at all. And I thought that a nice idea, what a comfort it was for musicians that worry about their music; (knowing) that they're going to go up into that room and in there there's going to be Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, Minnie Ripperton, all of them just having a great big jam in the sky, and all the musicians will join in with it.
I: And so Bill, who was mentioned in the title, Bill is the fictitious member of the band?
K: No. Bill is Bill Duffield, the gentleman who died on our tour and in so many ways he made me want to write the song right from the beginning. It was such a tragedy and he was such a beautiful person that it only seemed right that there should be something on the next album for him.
I: It's almost ironic that it does have a very up tempo new waveish feel because in some of your earliest interviews you said that some of your favourite artists were the new wave artists even though you yourself did not transmit as a new wave artist. Do you think there's any paradox in that?
K: Hard to say. I suppose I can't really relate to them, that's what I mean, because I do feel different in so many ways, like the way I go about things. I'm not projecting myself as a new wave person and people wouldn't accept me as such because my music is generally not in that area. But I love the energy, I love the power and the rawness - I love raw music, it's very primitive, it's what so much of our music is about. That's what I love and it's something I've always enjoyed - I've always loved rock 'n' roll and only recently have I started learning to control rhythm in my songs. It's normally controlled me and it's mainly the rhythm box that has helped me tremendously.
I: There follows an interlude called "Night Scented Stock". Have you ever wanted to do more in the way of instrumental or sound without words?
K: Yes, I have. I think perhaps I've always felt worried about doing it myself because I've always written songs and I've never really regarded myself as much as a musician as a songwriter. This album taught me that I should be a little more brave about that because music without words is just as beautiful and sometimes I feel the need to just keep putting words on music instead of just letting the music be. I hope in the future that perhaps I will move into that area a little more.
I: You mentioned there's a least one unreleased track - are there tracks we will never hear or will they come out as singles?
K: I think they'll come out. Some of them have already come out as B sides, tracks that weren't on the album we put on the B sides of singles. That's something I've always wanted to do, it's so good to give the public something not on the album, especially if they're going to buy that too. It's quite exciting because you can dig up little novelty tracks that you've forgotten all about that you did years ago and for a B side they're smashing because they're one off and people have never heard them and it's a monument in time that may be from years ago.
I: You mentioned there are some ideas for you now as you consider your next recorded work - do you think you will do more recording next or will you do live work or will yo go home to the farm and think about it?
K: As I was saying, I really don't know. I want to do both so badly - the logical move would be to tour next but I'm so worried about making that decision, it's a long piece of time to give away and I want to do an album so badly. It's very difficult for me at this time to choose. I hope that as the months pass now with this promotion the answer will clink in my head - it always does that at the last minute”.
This is an interview that I had not come across before but was interested to seek out. I love Never for Ever. It is very much an underrated album. In the production seat, Bush was expanding her horizons and making very different musical compared to that on The Kick Inside and Lionheart. The interview above is really illuminating. Many people might not be aware of a lot of Kate Bush’s print interviews - as they are quite old and have been archived. As you can see above, she provided fresh perspectives and revelations…
PHOTO CREDIT: Angelo Deligio/Mondadori via Getty Images
FOR every album.