FEATURE:
The Kate Bush Interview Archive
PHOTO CREDIT: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy
1983: Voc'l (John Reimers)
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I think that I have sourced…
almost everything that is available through this incredible website. The interview I want to highlight today was conducted by John Reimers of Voc’l. There are a couple of reasons why this interview stands out. I shall come to that soon. In terms of the person who interviewed her. John Reimers spoke with Kate Bush in late 1983. Marking forty years of a really interesting chat, he was someone who became a friend of the Bush family. An American publication that was highlighting an artist, at that point, not well known in the country, it is really interesting to consider how American audiences reacted to the icon. I like the fact that an artist who would release Hounds of Love two years later was not embraced or particularly appealing to those in the U.S. That corrected took a while to come. A year after The Dreaming came out, Bush was still discussing it. In late 1983, she had already planted the seeds for Hounds of Love. A home studio constructed and demos worked on. After unwinding with family at point during the year and detaching from the suffocation of recording and promoting, 1983 was not without interviews and releases. The fact that she did this interview seemed like a nod to the American market. Maybe an attempt to get her name out there more. If American listeners were not quite embracing of her music and sound, perhaps more personal insight was what was required. Getting to know the woman behind the music.
There are large parts of the 1983 interview I want to focus on. It goes into detail about The Dreaming and its tracks. There is also a question asked (of Bush) about her lack of commercial appeal and success in the U.S. Her maybe explaining why audiences there had not embraced her music in ways they had in the U.K., Europe and beyond:
“The Dreaming is perhaps Kate Bush's most ambitious effort to date. Utilizing the Fairlight CMI (computer musical instrument), she creates a rhythmic, experimental sound with a truly haunting, yet human, quality.
With a new album already on the way (and increasing interest expressed by EMI-America, which once felt her music was somewhat unmarketable here), Kate Bush is more than ready to break into America's pop music market. Nineteen-eighty-four may well be her best year yet.
At the time, what were your feelings on the success of Wuthering Heights?
"I was very surprised. It's not something you really take in. I was obviously very excited. It was such a wonderful thing to happen after having just finished my first album--when you're not sure how things are going to go."
The Dreaming was released in late 1982, some two years after Never For Ever. Why did this album take so much longer than the previous ones?
"Well, I don't know about other people, but I find that I've always had to work hard in order to get something good. I don't think I could just do something quickly that would be marvellous. I have to work hard at it just to make it right. But I think I am quite critical of my work, and it just takes me a long time anyway. I think things come quite slowly for me. So, I do have to work hard in order to come up with something.
"I always seem to be behind myself. I should have had an album out already this year (1983), but because of how I work, I can't do it. So, I suppose, because I'm always behind..."
How much time is involved in the actual writing of the songs?”.
"I think nearly everything I do takes me a long time. I find it quite hard to get things the way I want them. And I think the only time I've ever written ten songs quickly was the last album, The Dreaming. But then we spent ages in the studio. And part way through the album, I stopped going to the studio, and just spent a couple of months working on the lyrics. That was very hard, but I think it was worth it.
"For a total album, I felt more pleased with those lyrics than with any of the albums before. There have always been a couple of songs that I thought were, perhaps, a bit weak. But I worked very hard on The Dreaming."
How important a part did the Fairlight play in The Dreaming?
"I think on this album it played an incredibly important part. I didn't have one when I was writing the songs for The Dreaming, but I had it very much in mind. As soon as I went into the studio, a couple of weeks later, I actually bought one so that I could have more time to work with it.
"It's an incredible thing. For those songs it was really perfect. A great deal of effort went into trying to create an emotional effect for the atmosphere of the songs, and I find that the Fairlight is a very understanding instrument in those areas."
Was producing The Dreaming a new creative outlet for you?
"Yes, and I think very much an outlet that had been in motion before, but I hadn't had complete control. It was very exciting for me and also very worrisome, because it was something new and something that held a great deal of responsibility.
"I really did enjoy doing it. But, it was also much more demanding and intense than I had expected. The songs actually started to change once I got in the studio, and it became a very emotional thing. It became very tiring emotionally, but very satisfying.
"I think when you put that amount of effort into something, you feel a great deal of satisfaction when it starts working out the way you want it to. I would never consider going into the studio without a very good engineer, though. I think that is such an important part of an album--someone who can get you a really good sound and personality.
"It's also very important to have someone to get feedback from. You need that. And you obviously get very close with someone who's working on the same project with you, so you want them to like it. It's good if you're all enjoying it and there's a nice relationship among the people you're working with. That really helps a lot."
In the title track of The Dreaming, it is virtually impossible to be aware of all the sounds and voices at the same time. This seems to hold true for much of the album.
"I think, especially with that track and Get Out of My House, that was--well, hopefully--what we wanted to happen. It was very much working in layers.
"The idea was that the third or fourth time a person listened to the record, they would start hearing things they hadn't heard before. I think that's really my favourite kind of music. The best examples are some of the Beatles records. I still listen to them, and am still amazed at the quality of the songwriting. It still stands up today. I mean, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour -- there just isn't a bad track on them, every one is brilliant, and there are so many ideas in each song. Maybe each time you listen you pick up on a different area of what is going on. And I really wanted to create something a bit like that, so that, as people listened to it more, it would somehow grow.
"What I suppose worries me, are the people who aren't prepared for music you really have to listen to. Perhaps they find it a bit confusing because it's not all there on the surface. It's something that you do have to give time to, a bit like a book. But if it's actually getting through to some people, which it obviously has from the feedback, then that's fantastic."
What does The Dreaming mean?
"It's an aboriginal term that was also called Dreamtime. The Dreaming and Dreamtime are the same thing: the time of creation that the aborigines believe in. It's a very ancient religious thing for them."
One track from The Dreaming, Leave It Open, has a backward masking at the end, under the chorus.
"Yes. We actually have a thing going in this country (England), where there are people who write in every week with a new version of what they think has been said at the end of the song, and no one has gotten it yet.
"I think there are only about three or four people who actually know what has been said there. I really like that, though--the idea of all these people sitting and listening over and over to the ending and wondering what's being said. It's lovely, like a game."
I suppose the obvious question at this point would be, "But what does it say?" But, bypassing that one, how important is it for the listener to understand your intentions while listening to one of your records?
"It means a lot to me if people are interpreting the music in the way that I originally wanted it to be done. But, I do feel that music is a bit like a painting, in that when you buy a painting, it's because you like it. And what is important is your interpretation of what it means. That's why it means so much to you. I think that applies to records as well.
"But, as long as people are getting enjoyment out of them, I don't think it matters to me. It doesn't worry me if they don't understand the way that I'd hoped they would. But of course it's always nice if they do."
Why do you think your music is so greatly ignored in the U.S.?
"I don't think the music automatically fits into categories. So, I don't think it's easy for it to fit into the majority of radio programming in America.
"I also think it would have helped a lot if the record company had actually released the albums in the U.S.! Apart from the first album, The Dreaming is the only other album they've released in America. So, in many ways, there hasn't been that much for people to buy or to hear. Apart from that, I can't say why."
A promotional trip to the U.S. was cancelled this past spring.
"I was due over in June, and was very excited about it. I was really disappointed because I had been getting some very positive feedback from America, especially from the press-- reviews and articles. There are people who really seem to like the album. It looks now like I'm probably not going to be over until I have a new album. But it was disappointing for me. I was greatly looking forward to it."
Will you be touring at all in the near future?
"I do want to. Quite honestly, until last year I couldn't start thinking about doing a show because I needed two albums clear of the last show to have enough new material. I was hoping to be able to start thinking about a show in 1983, but I got into time problems, because nearly everything I do takes me so long.
"If I had done a tour, I probably wouldn't even be writing songs for a new album until much later. And the general feeling was that it was too long a gap. So, I really just want to get this album out, and then I can start thinking about doing a show.
"But that's going to mean a lot of organizing. I won't even know how far, or where we'll be taking it until we've got an estimate on the cost. One of the big problems is money. The last show I did really did cost a lot. But, if a tour seems practical, I would love to bring it to America”.
Such an interesting interview, 1983 was a year where Bush was wrapping up promotion for The Dreaming and looking ahead. People did not know what was to come. Bush would make appearances and there was the odd between late-1983 and 1985. Maybe not as prolific as other Pop artists around the time, there was rumours Bush had quit music or there was some personal crisis. She did come back with a triumphant album in 1985. A complete shift from The Dreaming, I am interested reading how Bush reacted to her fourth studio album in the months after it came out. Seeing out 1983 and looking back on a hectic past couple of years, Kate Bush was at this amazing and important juncture of her career. Very soon…
EVERYTHING would change.