FEATURE:
The Kate Bush Interview Archive
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton
2006: Philippe Badhorn (Rolling Stone France)
_________
I feel a bit guilty….
about doing this feature, as all the hard work and passionate research is already been done by this great archive! One that collates all the print interviews from Kate Bush from 1978 to 2011. I guess I select the interviews, write a bit around the text, select the part of the interview that is the best, then add in videos and photos. Even so, at least it allows Kate Bush fans to read interviews they may not have come across. A lot of my recent features have mainly been from the 1970s and 1980s. I have not focused on Kate Bush’s Aerial/mid-'00s period. The interview I am focusing on now is from Rolling Stone France. It was published in 2006. Philippe Badhorn was charged with speaking with Kate Bush following the release of her superb 2005 double album. Aerial reached twelve in France. I guess the language barrier may mean some questions and interactions are a little more strained or different to other interviews. Even so, as you will see below, the interaction between Bush and Badhorn is interesting and quite comfortable. We get some interesting and often funny answers from Bush. Standard and over-used questions around Bush’s privacy and ‘reclusiveness’. I love the interviews from the Aerial period. Kate Bush was no stranger to the French media. This fascinating interview from 1990 is one of the best. Rolling Stone France have some much-deserved coverage of one of Kate Bush’s greatest and most personal albums. One that was a ‘return’ after 1993’s The Red Shoes:
“Twelve years to release a new album. The eighth since 1978. Because she prefers life to glory, Kate Bush has been too long away. But her aura has not faded. Rare meeting with an artist who has always called the tune.
The masterless voice.
In Abbey Road studios, west of London, some Beatles don’t record every day. John, a young assistant, tells that a big company’s big wig hired studio 2 a whole day last week to practise how to deliver a speech with emotion. Just where the Fab Four recorded most of their music. Just where Kate Bush supervised together with Michael Kamen the orchestral arrangements of Aerial, her double album released at last after 12 years of discographic silence. Kate Bush gives one of her rare interviews in the control room of this very studio, a comfortable place overhanging a large wooden room where stands a Steinway and waits an army of microphone feet.
To say the truth the lady is late. Her house is hidden just 2 hours north of London, but the traffic seems heavy today. At last she arrives, alone, handing a big wicker basket filled with a thick Filofax and all kinds of notebooks.
First of all its disappointment. The press photographs soften the fact that at 47 Kate Bush isn’t any longer the emotion stirring white which, the sensual, sophisticated and eccentric savage who inflamed the senses of the aesthetes of a whole generation (or even two). But she holds graciously her ample figure with the ease of those who get along with their body.
We sit side to side on the sofa in front of a cup of tea. The sweetly searching look of her hazel eyes, the irresistible and indefinable smile, the voice with deeply musical intonations : nothing more is needed to be under her charm.
Philippe Badhorn: You remain faithful to Abbey Road studios, still you record mainly at home. You wanted very soon (1983) to have your own studio.
Kate Bush: I like Abbey Road for its atmosphere. I feel quite comfortable there. But to have my own studio is not only a question of artistic freedom. In a very pragmatic way, it’s also a question of money. As soon as you get into a long period of time, the bill becomes overwhelming. In a regular studio, I couldn’t have had enough time to experiment.
Philippe Badhorn: You started this record 9 years ago. Did you have to re-record a lot so that it sounded consistent ?
Kate Bush: I was very much concerned about the cohesion. So I tried to give it a global atmosphere of flow, of flux. King of the mountain, Sunset and An architect’s dream were there very soon. But in the definitive version of King of the mountain, a lot of stuff from the early work is still there, the keyboard for instance. Most of the vocals too were recorded 9 years ago. On the other hand, the drum parts and the rest were recorded the 45 last days (she says years instead of days, Freudian slip), a very intense period. What’s been done during that period creates the cohesion. I am glad when I am told that the album doesn’t sound like a collection of moments apart.
Philippe Badhorn: King of the mountain was the first title. It draws a picture of Elvis living in a kind of childlike Olympus. Elvis reappearing was mentioned at that time.
Kate Bush: Yes, now that you say it, it’s true. I thought it was a lovely idea that someone so cherished would still be alive and happy somewhere in some limbo (in the song Elvis goes tobogganing riding Rosebud, symbol of childhood and lost innocence in the film Citizen Kane by O. Welles ). I remember a show in the 50s with Elvis. The host didn’t talk about him as an egocentric and selfish person but as an unpretentious and sweet one and I do believe he was. When he got older, he didn’t seem to be happy. Maybe he was.
Philippe Badhorn: Is Elvis your opposite? You work at your own pace, you manage to have a life away from show-business when he stepped out of day-to-day reality.
Kate Bush: I believe he really was a sweet and fun loving nice guy who couldn’t say no. Nobody would want to be that famous. I was already asked if I felt I was like him. Thank god I don’t. I’m not as famous, nobody is, except maybe Frank Sinatra or Marilyn Monroe, but she died because of that sooner than him. It’s hard to have the whole world looking at you.
Philippe Badhorn: Have you ever wanted to be famous ?
Kate Bush: No.
Philippe Badhorn: But you need other people’s opinion, don’t you?
Kate Bush: It’s ambiguous, it’s true, like for every artist. I spent a lot of time on this record. I want people to listen and appreciate the music. But being the centre of attention makes life more difficult. We all feel that some aspects of modern life are intrusive, it’s hard to keep one’s own space. I consider myself as a writer. Maybe people don’t think of me that way but that’s how I feel. A writer needs a strong connection with reality. My family and my domestic life are incredibly important for me and essential for my work. It maybe comes from my Irish roots on my mother’s side.
Philippe Badhorn: But you don’t like being described as a recluse.
Kate Bush: Because I’m not. Someone who never meets people and never goes out is a recluse. I’m not like that, I meet people but I spend a lot of time in the studio and I don’t go to parties or premieres often. Especially these ten last years I have lived a normal life. And was happy with it. The only trouble is I was sometimes afraid I wouldn’t finish this record. Time seemed to evaporate during this period. I hadn’t planned it would take so long. I would have been terrified if I was told so. It was profitable time though.
Philippe Badhorn: You devoted yourself to your son
Kate Bush: I moved to the country. We had another studio built. Albert was born (Bertie, in 1998). It’s difficult to make a record and raise a little boy. But the time spent with him hasn’t been lost. He’s aware his mother is well-known but it’s not been a problem for him. I’m a normal person, not some strange and absent entity.
Philippe Badhorn: You protect your private life but one song is named after your son (Bertie). It’s the most wholehearted declaration of love from a mother I’ve ever heard.
Kate Bush: My life, friends and family, was always part of my work (a very Bushian example : her partner Danny MacIntosh plays the guitar on the album and her ex, Del Palmer, now a friend, recorded and mixed it ). My work is very, very personal and intimately connected to my everyday life. This is one of the reasons why I want my house to be a home, not a goldfish bowl. I have this place, my home, my base, that should stay a bit secret. But how not to have a song about my son when he’s such a big part of my life? I don’t think I put him on public view, as I would if I showed him on television. It’s inside my own creative space. There are some photographs of Bertie in the record booklet. But he doesn’t really look like that any longer, it’s not like a photograph in a tabloid. But it’s true, in this world, there’s a worship of celebrity on many TV programs. I can’t believe it ! It’s somehow funny but I think it’s crazy and I really don’t want to be involved in it !
Philippe Badhorn: You moved house, you had a baby, OK. But your perfectionism certainly put off the release.
Kate Bush: Perfectionism isn’t the right word, I’m rather quick-tempered and I know what I want. Getting right the images I have in my head is always delicate. People think I spend years to write a song. Actually it’s often wooorg (she pretends to vomit). What takes time are the arrangements, finding the right atmosphere, the right emotional quality of the vocals. But I don’t try to erase all imperfection. I don’t believe in perfection. For instance in Mrs Bartolozzi the voice plays with the piano. There’s a part I really hate. But as part as the whole song, I could’nt get the same emotional quality on the other takes. This version is a bit out of tune, I don’t pronounce the words the way I wished but the emotion I was looking for is there.
Philippe Badhorn: It’s probably the most ambiguous song on the album (her eyes sparkle as I say ambiguous). An ode to domestic happiness (especially the laundry) but one can think of a darker meaning.
Kate Bush: Some of my friends loved it, others thought it was a funny interlude, and others didn’t feel comfortable either they thought it was about the disguise of a crime or it was too personal. But it’s not me in particular.
Philippe Badhorn: Don’t you want everything clean and shiny?
Kate Bush: I do a lot of housework, I especially like the laundry. There’s a link between the washing, the clothes and the person wearing them, the water in the washing machine and the sea. I do a lot of laundry especially since I have a child. I think it’s a way of being close to my roots and to life. As a child I saw my mother wash and be the main character at home (daddy was a doctor). It’s incredibly important for me. I like to have a connection with this work. Holding a house isn’t that slavery to me.
Philippe Badhorn: The feminists will appreciate. On the other hand you also sing about Joan of Arc (Joanni) without a ring on her finger and wearing a bright armour.
Kate Bush: I wanted two records for this album. One is a concept about the changing of light and birds songs during the day. The other is about very different persons, Mrs Bartolozzi, Elvis or Joan of Arc are archetypes, very strong people.
Philippe Badhorn: Are you a mix of the three ?
Kate Bush: Do you think so? Maybe (laughs)”.
A wonderful interview that you should read in full, 2005 and 2006 was quite busy for Kate Bush in terms of press and promotion. Even though this was the first album with no T.V. press or much visual promotion, she did plenty of print interviews and some great radio chats. In future parts of The Kate Bush Interview Archive – I said I would end the run but, with some post-2005 interviews still to go, I may do a few more -, I will look at the period between Aerial and 2011’s Director’s Cut. Aerial, a magnificent and expansive album where Bush is in peak form, still sounds remarkable nearly nineteen years after its release. You can tell how much it meant to her. If you have not heard the album in a while, take some time out and explore its…
PHENOMENAL songs.