FEATURE:
The Kate Bush Interview Archive
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Mary Dickie: Music Express (1990)
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I don’t think that I have…
included this interview. I thought I had found pretty much every print interview Kate Bush had been involved with. with this invaluable website providing resources and guidance, there was another one that I wanted to source. I have not done this feature for a while, but I am glad I can revive it – if only for a short time. In a 1990 interview with Mary Dickie of Music Express, Bush was promoting her remarkable sixth studio album, The Sensual World. It is one of the more interesting interviews from that time, at a moment in Bush’s career where she had put out one of her more personal albums. Quite a challenging time in some ways – following up an album as successful as Hounds of Love -, she was in her thirties and embarking on this new stage of her career:
“The Sensual World is, according to Kate, something of a departure of her in that besides being her most personal, it's also her most "female" album. What does she mean by that?
"Well, I'm not sure what I mean, except that's how it feels to me," she laughs. "I suppose what I'm trying to say is that some of the songs feel like I'm writing them as a female, which is not necessarily something I've felt strongly before.
"I think people tend to presume that when you are female you write from a female point of view, but I'm not sure I always have, really. A lot of my songs have been written from a man's point of view, or a child's point of view - I've never necessarily felt like a female writer. In fact, I think in the past I've very much enjoyed not writing as a female. It's kind of like writing stories - you don't really want to be yourself; you want to put yourself into other situations that are much more interesting."
This time, however, Kate's into the "positive female energy" thing. The song The Sensual World, for example, was inspired by the famous monologue at the end of James Joyce's Ulysses by Molly Bloom (amusingly misidentified as "Wally Blue" in the press information). But more than that, it's the sound of the album that makes it different.
As Kate explains, "Although Hounds Of Love was definitely a female work of art, from a sound point of view I wanted to get the sense of power I associate with male music - strong rhythms, big drum sounds, very sort of male energy sounds. But I just didn't necessarily want to go for that anymore."
But if big drums are male energy sounds, what are female energy sounds? "Well, I think that unfortunately most female sounds in rock music are dissipated by male sounds, because generally it's the males who are producing and playing the instruments," she says. "So I'm not sure there is a strong female sound in contemporary music. There is in ethnic music, though. Now the Bulgarian singers [The Bulgarian State Choir and Orchestra, an all-female choir whose haunting Mystere Des Voix Bulgare album and tour took music lovers by storm last year] - that's very much female music, from a strong female point of view. I think it has a tremendous intensity because of that, and it's very unusual for us to hear that kind of positive female strength, which you don't really find in contemporary music."
Kate found herself so inspired by the Bulgarian singers that she wound up using three of them, the Trio Bulgarka, to contribute vocals to three songs on The Sensual World. The interweaving of the Bulgarian voices with Kate's is particularly startling on Rocket's Tale, which she wrote with the trio in mind (and which, in spite of its rarefied sound, turns out to be named for her cat ). But the singing of these women (Yanka Rupkhina, Eva Georgieva and Stoyanka Boneva) seems to have had a lasting impact on Kate, as well as setting the tone for the whole album.
"The first time I heard them sing was just after we finished the last album," she says. "My brother Paddy, who listens to a lot of ethnic music, heard them on Radio Sofia, and he played me a tape. And I could not believe it. It was just devastating, as it is for everyone the first time they hear it. It's like angels, isn't it? And when I was thinking about making another album, I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if perhaps we could work try working together!' That was scary for me, because their music is so good - you don't want to drag them down to your level, you know? I mean, funky Bulgarians would be just terrible!"
In any case, Kate eventually made the trip to Sofia, Bulgaria, to meet the singers, and rehearsed with them for three days. As she says, "It was just incredible - some of the purest musical communication I've ever had, and we didn't have any other language in common, because they don't speak English and I don't speak Bulgarian!"
Besides Bulgarian singers, books - which have been a continuing source of inspiration ever since Wuthering Heights - and cats, what else inspires Kate to write songs?
"Well, I think relationships are probably what continually entice me, as well as films and books," she says. "And conversations with people. They're all very much inspirational things. Just ideas, and things people might have said that sparked something.
"But it's interesting how most of these things originated long ago, and maybe four or five years later they're regurgitated into an idea," she continues. "Like Cloudbusting [on the Hounds Of Love LP) - that was originally from a book I read nine years before I wrote the song! It struck me very deeply, but it took a long time to step back enough to write the song, because it was a very powerful experience for me. I think sometimes the more powerful something is, the more you're scared of it. You're a bit wrapped up in it, and it takes time to move back, to perhaps see how you could look at it differently."
One song, This Woman's Work was inspired by, of all things, a John Hughes movie - She's Having A Baby. Says Kate: "It's a light film, very comic, about a young guy whose wife gets pregnant, and everything remains light until they get to the hospital, and suddenly she's rushed away and he's left sitting there. You get the impression that this is the moment when he has to start growing up. Up until then he's been a kid, and very happily so. It's a lovely piece of film, and in some ways it's an exploration of guilt, I guess.
And now for the age-old question, the one that Kate doesn't like: what about touring? Kate has done only one tour in her career, way back in 1979, and though she said she enjoyed it, it looks as though she won't do it again.
"Why do people still ask me if I'm going to tour?" she say's, incredulously. "I haven't toured in ten years! I mean it's absolutely ridiculous!" Perhaps it's because she hedges so much about it, never quite coming out and saying that she'll never do it again.
"A lot of people of people think I hated touring, and that's why I haven't done it again," she acknowledges. "But actually I really enjoyed it. Sometimes I think I would like to, but I guess I'm scared of committing myself to something like that again. I found it very tiring, and it was really difficult for me to do anything for a very long time afterwards..."
As everyone who's seen Kate's videos knows, she definitely has an interest in the theatrical, and her live show was reportedly full of stage antics and special effects.
"I was very much influenced by dance and theatre at the time, and I really wanted to do something special with the show," she explains. "But recently, especially over these past two albums, it's been very important for me to spend time being a songwriter. I didn't want to be a performer. I didn't feel like a performer, and I didn't want to be exposed to all that it entails. I wanted to spend some tome alone at home and just be a songwriter and not be out there in front of everyone. I feel very exposed, doing that."
What about other people's music? Does she listen to records?
"I tend not to listen to music too much when I'm working on an album," she says, adding, "it's so intense that when I get home I like to watch things instead. But in between I like to listen. Right now I'm listening to the new John Lydon album, which is fantastic! It's really good!"
Although she will admit to missing audience contact, Kate has a large and steady following and can afford to remain in her Kent cocoon, insulated from and even unaware of trends in music - even if she did happen to hit upon one with the Bulgarian choir.
"If I was trying to be hip, I wouldn't stand much of a chance," she laughs. "Because by the time my record came out, four or five years later, it would be so passe! I'd have to leave it for 10 years, so that it would have time to come around again!”.
It is always interesting looking back at old interviews where Kate Bush has talked (eloquently and interestingly) about her music. The Sensual World is one of her best albums, so it was a treat revisiting this interview from Music Express by Mary Dickie in 1990. The sheer amount of promotion she was doing back then was quite something. This being Kate Bush, she handled it all professionally and gave great value. She is now, as she was back then…
AN international treasure.