FEATURE:
The Kate Bush Interview Archive
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993 (even though she was not happy at the time with the photos/shoot, Bush is captured at a crucial and interesting stage of her career)/PHOTO CREDIT: John Stoddart
Roger Trilling: Details (1994)
__________
I do not normally…
include entire interviews in The Kate Bush Interview Archive but, as this one is fascinating and quite tense, I wanted to highlight it. There was not a lot of press around Kate Bush in 1994. Shortly after The Red Shoes came out (November 1993) and her short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve was released (it premiered in 1993 but was released in the U.K. in 1994), there was still this interest. A reason why her interview with Roger Trilling of the U.S. publication Details is fascinating is because of the questions asked. Some are very personal. Kate Bush, as always, fielding them with dignity and patience. Rubbeband Girl (from The Red Shoes) has a video out in the U.S. - and, whilst it did not do that well, there was still some buzz from America. It is amazing that, over fifteen years since her debut single, Bush was still being talked about like a celebrity! Like it was a tabloid newspaper or magazine featuring someone’s personal life, rather than an artist. How much focus was there on the music?! In March 1994, this fascinating interview was published in a U.S. publication. I wonder whether it was encounters like this that took Bush out of the spotlight and music until 2005 (she did the odd thing but was much less active after 1994):
“KATE BUSH
A tightly wound conversation with the Rubberband Girl
{Details} Hi, Kate. You're in from Kent, right?
{K} Yes. That sounds like the country, but it's really southeast London.
{D} You live in the 'burbs?
{K} Yeah. I'd like to live in the country, but I need to get into London, and I don't think I'd have been able to put my film [ The Line, the Cross, the Curve ] together and work on the album if I couldn't center it at my house. I'd love to make albums quicker, but it always ends up being more involved than I initially think it will be.
{D} Because the songs change shape?
{K} Yeah, they take on their own life, and I end up being dragged along behind them. I write quickly, but then ideas for arrangements and sometimes the actual structures for the songs change. Usually I get to a point where I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish it, and then once I'm over that bump it's not so bad.
{D} How does that sit with [boyfriend and coproducer] Del?
{K} He's my partner in the whole process. Most of the time it's just him and myself, and we bring musicians in for layering. It's quite intimate; there's not many people involved, and most of them I've known for a long time so they're close friends.
{D} It seems that you love transcendent things...
{K} I have a fascination with putting together opposites.
{D} Like what?
{K} Like ancient acoustic instruments and synthesizers. Or like Irish music: It's so full of life, and yet at the same time there's this incredible tension, a poignance that also makes it very sad.
{D} You say in one of your lyrics that life and love are sad. When did you decide that?
{K} It was a line from Jospeh Campbell, and I'm not saying it's something I believe--quite often there are things said in a song that I don't believe at all, but they are beliefs of other people, and sometimes that's very relevant.
{D} Hmm. Have you found joy in romantic love?
{K} Yeah, I think so. But there's also a great deal of joy in love that isn't necessarily romantic.
{D} Can you read music?
{K} No. I learned to read when I was young--I played the violin--but my heart wasn't in it. What was fun was finding my own way, being allowed to dive off and play for hours on my father's piano.
{D} Do you still improvise?
{K} Not like I did, and there was a big attempt on this album [ The Red Shoes ] to get back to that. With the last three albums, I've been writing straight onto tape, but actually sitting and playing the piano without the technology all around me was really good. "Top of the City" was written like that.
{D} When you play the piano, do you ever go in directions other than songs?
{K} I might start off doing that, but it always ends up being a song. I think there's a great desire in me to tell stories.
{D} How important is popularity to you?
{K} It's not something I have big ambitions about.
{D} So do members of your cult scare the shit out of you?
{K} My *cult*!? What cult?
{D} You have a cult. C'mon, don't be coy.
{K} (laughs) What kind of cult? There is a figure that is adored, but I'd question very strongly that it's me. My work speaks far more eloquently than I do, and if people get anything at all out of the tracks, whether it's what I intended or not, then that's great. But I don't care if people like me or not--I am what I am, I do the best I can, and that's what matters.
{D} A friend of mine said he got the feeling from your music that you don't feel accountable to anyone else.
{K} (laughs) Well, we are slaves to ourselves, but it could be worse.
{D} Is that why you've never had kids?
{K} Huh? That's very personal.
{D} Well, would you?
{K} I would like to have kids, yeah.
{D} More so since your mum died?
{K} It's certainly loss that heightens the realization that life is short--
{D} And art is long.
{K} (laughs) Sometimes. Not always.
{D} What's the most irritating thing about other people?
{K} Maybe it's just their way of expressing themselves, but sometimes people like to make things difficult.
{D} Including you?
{K} Yeah. But obviously people ultimately only have to answer to themselves.
{D} The thing I hate most is having to please myself.
{K} Why?
{D} My self isn't worth it.
{K} Oh, but it is! Most of the creative process is just one disappointment after another, but hopefully, as you move through life, a little less so each time. It's never perfect. In fact, it's important that it's imperfect. That's why I don't listen to my old stuff; I can't remember when I heard anything before Hounds of Love. To finish something is the achievement--then let go and do something new.
{D} That sounds very idealistic.
{K} Not at all. Most of the people I know never listen to their old music. It's so unattractive, particularly the further back it goes. There's such a lot to date it....Do you have the time? I have to keep an eye on the time”.
Nearly thirty years ago, Bush was doing promotion still for The Red Shoes and various singles. After that, there was occasional interviews and appearances. It was a moment when she was taking stock and thinking of her next move. I feel it was a period when she faced tragedy and disappointment, so she wanted to take some time out. Her mother died in 1992. She was in a relationship with Dan McIntosh, yet she split from Del Palmer (whom she was involved with for many years). The Red Shoes was not a huge critical success. U.S. commercial acclaim was minor. This, coupled with a negative reaction to The Line, the Cross and the Curve meant she did need to regroup and recharge. A time when she could breathe and not have the pressure of releasing another album so soon. I guess it is impressive that EMI allowed her so long before her next album came – a twelve-year gap is not something most modern artists would be afforded. These 1993 and 1994 interviews and really interesting. It was a career period where Bush was thinking of her current work in addition to considering family and taking a career break. The Details/Roger Trilling chat is quite illuminating and memorable! That is why I want to pull it in without amendments or redaction. In spite of some difficult and overly-personal questions, Kate Bush remains such…
A consummate professional.