FEATURE:
The Kate Bush Interview Archive
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993
1993: Nick Coleman (Time Out)
___________
I have selected this interview…
to talk about, as there is a focus on the film director Michael Powell and his influence on Kate Bush; evident in the title track of her 1993 album, The Red Shoes. There are some great print interviews I have not yet covered. Nick Coleman from Time Out spoke with Bush in 1993. It is quite a deep and interesting interview that veers off at times – near the end, he is admonished for straying into Bush’s personal life and crossing boundaries. For the most part, the interview is compelling and throws up some great answers. Thanks to this great website for providing the interview transcript. Many people overlook The Red Shoes as an album and the film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve. I have selected various sections of the interview between Coleman and Bush:
“Yet Bush has maintained a buffering distance between herself and the knowing methodology of traditional pop-craft, preferring to define herself as an expressive vessel of subtle emotion, for whom creativity is both a burden and a joy, from whom music just comes out, like blood. She says ideas come to her at the piano, from doodles, which evolve rapidly into visual images, which are then nurtured and enlarged upon through various stages until they are given final, incorruptible shape in the recording studio. Over recent albums, the studio itself has become a musical instrument, which she has learned to play with some accomplishment. The talk is always of art, creativity and reaching inside; never of craft, commerce and giving people what they want. This is English, suburban, middle-class sexiness with a high mind.
Is she disingenuous? Almost certainly not. But then one of the privileges of eccentricity is perceived innocence. Bush doesn't have to be disingenuous, because no one would believe it of her, not even if she went on telly and announced formally to a choking Michael Aspel that really she never meant a word of it; and isn't it great, pop, the way you can do anything you like so long as there's demand! After all -- perhaps above all -- she embodies the homely Noel Streatfeild ideal of creativity as a distinguishing mark, as a personal brand, fizzing, black and indelible. In a world overstocked with Gemmas and Paddies and Susies and Kates, who you are is what you're good at. That's how the grown-ups tell you apart.
She pours tea and places herself on the edge of her chair. She is small, not minute, and erect. One booted leg crosses the other and bumps gently up and down. She cocks her head and waits. She is courteous, cool and suspicious.
My friend Catherine has never opened any post addressed to Kate Bush. There was, however, a letter that came addressed merely to 'Catherine '. So Catherine opened it. Inside was a lot of stream-of-consciousness stuff about dreams, and about how the writer was watching Catherine. So Catherine snorted, noted the postmark and forgot about it. Then another letter arrived, identically addressed, from the same postal region; then another, and another, each of them increasingly weird and disturbing. Sometimes three would arrive in a day. And it so happened that on the day that Catherine decided to go to the police, a letter arrived that included a reference to Catherine's poetry and music, neither of which are big with Catherine. Also, the letter included the appellation Kate.'
'It's so nice to talk about my work for once,' she says. By this she means she's glad we've started by talking about the great film director Michael Powell and his influence on her, which is signally manifest in the title track of her new album 'The Red Shoes'.
'The Red Shoes' is a ballet film made by Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1948, telling the story of a dancer who is torn between the demands of a great impresario, who can help her to become an artist of destiny, and those of her composer/husband, who can bring her happiness. The story elides an old fairy tale and a take on the power struggle that raged between the dancer Nijinsky and Diaghilev, first director of the Ballet Russe. Bush says the song evolved out of a feeling she had one day at the piano of music running away with itself. The image in her mind 'was like horses galloping and running away, with the horses turned into running feet, and then shoes galloping away with themselves'. Which corresponded, conveniently enough, with the key fairy-tale element in the Powell film: the red pumps worn by the tragic ballerina, which are imbued with a magic that carries their wearer off in a terrible outpouring of expressiveness.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the filming of The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Bush contacted Powell shortly before he died, 'to see whether he'd be interested in working with me. He was the most charming man, so charming. He wanted to hear my music, so I sent him some cassettes and we exchanged letters occasionally, and I got a chance to meet him not so long before he died. He left a really strong impression on me, as much as a person as for his work. He was just one of those very special spirits, almost magical in a way. Left me with a big influence.'
Which makes some kind of sense. Powell's super-rich three-strip Technicolor, his English-ness, his 'expressiveness', his interest in the shadows cast by daylight; even, you could argue, his thematic preoccupation with islands, solitary souls and the unconfined spirit; these are some of Bush's favourite things.
'His work is just so... so beautiful,' says Kate, in her tiniest voice.
Meaning what, exactly?
'Well, there's such heart in his films. The way he portrayed women... that was particularly good and very interesting. His women are strong and they're treated as people...'
That's one kind of beauty.
'The heart, I think, is the main beauty. This human quality he has. Although there's clever shots in his films, they're not really used for effect, to be clever. They're used for an emotional effect. I'd call that a human quality. Like vulnerability. Also, I like the emotional qualities of the characters. I suppose in one way they're very English ...'
To combine her interest in Powell with her lust for new directions, and perhaps to solve one or two promotional problems, Bush has directed a 40-minute film interpreting six songs from the excellent 'Red Shoes' album. It will be premiered at the London Film Festival.
'I'll be very interested to see what people make of it. To see whether they regard it as a long promo video or as a short film,' she says.
Where do your stories come from?
'Oh, all kinds of sources but generally they come down to people. People's ideas or works. Films, books, they all lead back to someone else's ideas, which in turn lead back to someone's else's ideas...'
You're 35 and you've been doing this since you were a teenager. How have you changed?
'I think I've changed quite a lot. Essentially I'm still the same person but I suppose I've grown up a lot, and learned a lot.'
What's made you grow up the most?
'You get lots of disappointments. I'm not sure that they make you grow up but they make you question intentions.' She pauses. 'But life is what makes you grow up.'
That's a fantastically evasive answer.
'It is quite evasive but I think it's true.' Still no dimple. 'It's hard to say... when I was young I was very idealistic, and I don't really think I am any more. I think I'm more... realistic. I think it's good to change. I think I'd be unhappy if I didn't change. It would mean I hadn't learnt anything.'
Do you ever think you're mad?
'Yes.' This is a slow answer, not without humour. 'Yes, I do. But it could be worse ... I think everyone is mad in their own way. I mean, what is normal? I do think I have quite a lot of fun with my madness, though. It's nice that I can channel it into my work.'
Does work ever feel like it's not quite enough?
'Oh, now! She glares. My blood vessels turn into zip-fasteners. Now I've done it. 'Those last two questions seem like they're coming in on an angle ...'
The lecture follows about how she makes it quite clear that questions about her private life are out of bounds. I protest that I'm not trying to get her to betray facts about her private life but to talk about how she sees herself, and the world outside. After all, I bluster, there is a connection between her feelings and her work, is there not? She pours tea, clanking the lid of the teapot, doing stuff with her hands.
It used to be said of Olivier that when he wasn't acting there didn't seem to be much of him left.
'Well, I'm only five foot three, so there's not so much of me here anywhere. I have so much time for actors. I mean, that really is putting yourself on the line. And acting is being so many different things, isn't it? I wonder how easy it is for very famous actors to hold on to a sense of who they are.'
Quite.
'But Olivier was awfully good at what he did, wasn't he? So if there wasn't much of him left, who cares, really? What he did was great’”.
In a lot of interviews, Kate Bush has had to deal with some tough questions or those who are asking inappropriate things! She always deals with them so well and calmly! As you can see from the interview above, it is respectful for the most part – those the personal questions are a little galling and intrusive. I like the Time Out interview, as Bush got to talk about film, The Red Shoes, in addition to Michael Powell and her friendship with him. The years 1993 and 1994 are not really exposed and explored regarding Bush and her career. I really like the fact that she put out The Line, the Cross and the Curve; The Red Shoes is an album with several strong highlights. She would wind down her career quite a bit after 1993…engaging less frequently with the media and not releasing her next studio album, Aerial, until 2005. The Time Out interview got me invested and imagining – what it must have been like for Nick Coleman being in the room with her. By all accounts, it sounds like…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993
QUITE an encounter!