FEATURE:
The Woman with the ‘Very Recognisable Nose’
Revisiting Tom Doyle’s 2006 Interview with Kate Bush
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ONE thing I am keen to do…
is present a few features based on Tom Doyle’s exceptional new book, Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush. I have a few more to do. I am going to write about Kate Bush’s debut single, Wuthering Heights, and her amazing debut album, The Kick Inside. Doyle has written about both of those. I also want to talk about Bush’s early songs. Going back to the earliest days, then. For this feature, I want to highlight Doyle’s 2006 chat with Bush. He spoke with her at length the year before when Bush released Aerial. The longest interview Bush has given anyone to that point (about four hours I think), Aerial’s promotional campaign involved fairly few interviews, but she did give a few very long ones (Mark Radcliffe’s interview with her was also quite deep and detailed). Maybe, as this was a double album and a sort of return after twelve years away, Bush felt she wanted to be quite accommodating with her time. To be fair, Bush appeared on Top of the Pops for the final time in 1994 performing The Red Shoes’ final single, And So Is Love. She also made public appearances, including her picking up a Classic Songwriter award on behalf of Q in 2001. In any case, it was nerve-wracking for Tom Doyle to speak with her in 2005, as Bush’s music and life had changed significantly since 1993. She had a new son (Bertie was born in 1998). Aerial was very different to anything she had ever released.
Doyle’s interview with Kate Bush in 2005 opens his book. A year later, he spoke with her on the phone to discuss the past twenty years. That was the year (1986) her greatest hits album, The Whole Story, came out. The reason Doyle wanted to know about her past twenty years was because he was writing for Q on their twentieth anniversary (you can see a couple of pages from that published interview at the top of this feature). The sadly-now-defunct magazine put together twenty different artists featuring twenty different artists. On 28th May, 2006, Bush was happy to be called. I guess the promotion for Aerial had all been done and the album has been out there for six months. I shall not quote all of the questions but, as it is such an important and interesting interview – to mark a significant occasion –, there are some exchanges that caught my eye. Typically, when Doyle asked what Bush was doing now, she said having a cup of tea! Quintessentially British in her fondness for tea, I like that she was there enjoying a brew and catching up with someone that she first met the year before for such a deep and remarkable interview. It was sort of like these new friends catching up. In 2001, Bush did receive an award from Q and was given a rapturous round of applause from the likes of Brian Eno and Radiohead. She said she was taken aback because musicians can be snobs in this country. They can give each other a hard time so, to get such warmth, was remarkable. Also, as she said, “It was a fantastic thing for me too because at that point I was still struggling away with making this album (Aerial)”. Fearful that people would forget her as an album had not been out for a long time, that validation and confirmation that she was very much loved and missed hit her hard!
Bush was asked what she was doing twenty years ago. The ‘some guy’ at the record company (EMI) is a bit of a hero, as he persuaded her to release a greatest hits collection. As I have written about, Bush was reluctant and thought it was a naff idea. She was won around when the representative brought figures and projections to her. With that research, Bush was won over. As she said it is just as well, as The Whole Story became her biggest-selling album and went to number one twice. “How brilliant that he persuaded me to do it, because I was so against it”. Bush discussed Hounds of Love. That went top thirty in the U.S., but she didn’t promote it endlessly. She did do some promotion and signed the album at Tower Records in New York. She observed how her and America had never seen eye to eye. Maybe a bit cliché to ‘crack’ the country, it is a long way away. For someone who grew to dislike travel and flying especially, spending time on the road would have been tiring. Bush was afraid that it would take her soul away. Bush went to America to do “my version of what I considered “pushing it”. That was because the 12” version of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) did well in the U.S. Going to America after The Tour of Life in 1979 was suggested, but she was exhausted. The prospect of touring so far away was not appealing. Whereas it was hard enough carting her set and crew around Europe, imagine have to do it in America!
Tom Doyle asked Kate Bush what car she was driving in 1986 (A little red convertible Golf); what the high point of the past twenty years has been (having her son, Bettie, as you are in no doubt about). There were some interesting revelations. When it came to the songs of the past twenty years she wish she’d written, a classic from Paul Simon’s 1986 album, Graceland, came up. The Boy in the Bubble was Bush’s selection, because she loved Paul Simon - and his real forte was poetry. That resonated with her. I could see Bush doing a great cover of The Boy in the Bubble! One funny exchange was when Doyle asked about her favourite artist of the past twenty years. Anthony and the Johnson’s Anthony (now ANOHNI) was who Bush chose. To imagine them collaborating! That would be something to witness! Doyle cheekily suggested Tori Amos (who has been called the ‘American Kate Bush’ and is clearly influenced by her). Bush laughed and said she took a deep breath, less she be dismissive or not seem egotistical by highlighting an artist who very much follows her lead and sound. Few would expect her to pick Shaggy as an artist that really stands out. She seemed to like his work, strangely! Bush was asked about fame and whether she is recognised in the street. I guess, around her hometown, there is some recognition. She explained how she wraps up and disguises herself a bit, but the problem is that “I obviously have a very recognisable nose”. I had not thought about it before, but I guess that is true!
Bush’s favourite drug of the past twenty years is caffeine. As a bit of a tea addict, she professed to sometimes getting through twenty cups a day. Not a fan of decaf, some of her best moments since 1986 were fuelled by gallons of tea! One of the things Kate Bush has had to contend with since she started out was people assuming she lives in a dusty mansion with cobwebs on some hill by a forest. Perhaps not aware that Wuthering Heights was fiction and she actually wrote that in her parents’ home at East Wickham Farm must have been confusing! She resided in various flats and houses around London, but she has lived on the coast and in Berkshire. All of the time, not a whiff of the Gothic or reclusive. Bush’s life, when interviewed in 2006, consisted of the school run and watching films. Quite homely and ordinary! We know that it would be five years after that interview that Bush released 50 Words for Snow (November 2011). She put out Director’s Cut in May of that year. It was quite a gap, but Bush said she was tired post-Aerial but it excited her that something not related to that album could start a new chapter. Aerial came twelve years after The Red Shoes. The fact Aerial got to number three and King of the Mountain (the only single from it) went to four in the U.K. That is quite remarkable, and it goes to show that her appeal and popularity will never wane, regardless of how long she is away for.
Bush was a bit shocked when it was revealed she had released three new albums in the past twenty years (Aerial, 2005; The Red Shoes, 1993; The Sensual World, 1989). A double album like Aerial is two albums, so I sort of think of it like she released one album every six years since The Red Shoes. Something that she says often in interviews is how long it takes to make albums. Bush always sits down with the intention they will be quick, and yet something in life happens that sets things back. With The Red Shoes, her mother Hannah was ill and died (in 1992). Aerial was slowed (or delayed a bit) by Bertie being born. Putting out two albums in 2011 took a lot of work and effort in the years before, but now it has eleven years since 50 Words for Snow came out. I wonder, if Tom Doyle spoke to Bush today, would she still react the same when that fact is highlighted?! Doyle asked Bush in 2006 if we could expect to wait twelve years for another album (which would be 2018 from the point of that interview). It was only just under six, but we are approaching twelve years since her latest album. Bush has been quite busy doing various bits since 2011 – including her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn -, but you imagine she is acutely aware people want an eleventh studio album from her! Doyle ended the 2006 interview by asking Bush where she’ll likely be in twenty minutes: “Probably in the toilet because of all the tea”. An insightful and interesting talk between Tom Doyle and Kate Bush to celebrate twenty years of Q magazine in 2006. It is a shame that the magazine is now no more and, indeed, that the two have not sat down for another interview since 2006. In 2018, some of Doyle’s four-hour chat with Kate Bush in 2005 was used in a feature for MOJO. I would hope that the two can get together for another lengthy interview, as the 2005 interview is amazing! His 2006 ‘catch up’ is brilliant too. If you want to read the full transcript, then go and buy Tom Doyle’s…
RUNNING Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush.