FEATURE:
Kate Bush: The Tour of Life
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at Tower Records, New York in November 1985 (where she was promoting Hounds of Love)
I am looking at various interesting times of Kate Bush’s career. I started out with looking at East Wickham Farm and its allure. How it was this incredibly engaging and inspiring place for a young Kate Bush. I am mostly going to be looking at this chronologically and working my way to the present day. One reason that I wanted to skip ahead to 1985 is because I have been thinking about her time in America. Now, Kate Bush is known there. Not as much as she should be, though she has got more traction and support there since the start of her career. One of most alarming and stressful times of her career was when she was discussing Hounds of Love in 1985. There would have been call for her to go to America because of the fact she had more fans there. Bush was no stranger to travel, yet it would have been quite an upheaval going to America for some promotional interviews. She did not perform live there. Instead, it was a moment when the nation was starting to react positively to her music. Not that the trip was a complete disaster. You look at the interviews from that time and you can sense this real clash and discomfort. Interviewers not really aware of who she is even. It would not be accepted today. I am not going to dwell on the horror and negative aspects. It is an important moment in her career. I guess, from EMI’s perspective, there was this opportunity for Kate Bush to establish herself there. Hounds of Love reached number thirty in the U.S. It was a big achievement. Given that fans at least knew who she was and responded to her music, that was not really mirrored when it came to critics and the media. Reviews for Hounds of Love in the U.S. were not all great. The country still not quite sure what to make of her.
There is not really anything specifically written about Kate Bush’s trip to America in 1985. We discuss Hounds of Love and its popularity. America was this sacred land for artists. The need to break the country. Kate Bush was never concerned about that. She loved her fans there, though there was this real culture clash. Listen to interviews from that time and I am not sure whether there was this realisation that Kate Bush was special and this wonderful artist. A sort of bafflement and confusion about her music. It was the ill-informed nature of the interviews that is quite galling. Live at Five was not the best interview. Some say that an Entertainment Tonight interview from the time was harmless enough. One of the interviews that gets highlighted when we look at Kate Bush in America is her Nightflight encounter. Bush’s interview with Nightflight was a lead balloon. A disaster. There are few televised interviews with her that are as awkward and memorable as this. It is the fact that the interviewer seemingly went into the encounter without any information or knowledge of Kate Bush. In 2022, LOUDER wrote about a truly excruciating encounter:
“If you'd had 'Kate Bush becomes one of 2022's defining artists' on your list of predictions for the year, you've have been called an eccentric, an idiot or, as it turns out, something of a prophet. Few could have imagined that Running Up That Hill would be given a new lease of life almost 40 years after its release, but then few could have predicted its central importance to the plot of the latest and much-hyped season of Stranger Things.
It's sparked an unprecedented new wave of interest in one of British music's most unique and enigmatic icons, pushing new fans to discover many of Bush's greatest musical achievements and most famous moments for the very first time. On the latter, new attention has been drawn to what might be Kate Bush's most infamous interview - a 37 minute chat with US show Night Flight filmed in November, 1985. Bush had made a rare trip to the States to promote latest album Hounds Of Love - the record which gave birth to Running Up That Hill - and what was presumably designed as a relatively straightforward new album junket ended up being one of the most cringeworthy experiences the singer-songwriter had surely endured in her career to that point.
In the unedited footage, which wasn't originally shown on the broadcast but has since been uploaded to YouTube, Bush can be seeing demonstrating the patience of a saint as she has to deal with a series of questions that range from banal to borderline offensive, dodgy takes on her music, delays and interruptions to the interview continuing and requests to record a series of tedious sound bytes multiple times.
Particular 'highlights' include: Bush visibly stopping herself laughing at the interviewer describing the songs on Hounds Of Love as "dance songs"; multiple instances of assistants interrupting the talk to mess around with her mic, clothing and hair; her obvious bemusement at being asked which male figure she considers a "sex symbol"; having to repeatedly explain that she didn't use backing singers on certain Hounds Of Love tracks despite the interviewer's insistence that she did and, most astonishingly of all, a moment at the end of the video where she is asked to record a special clip explaining what "attracts [her] the most" about a man”.
I think that interview was a big reason why Kate Bush was not concerned with breaking America. A good reason not to go back. She did first promote in America in 1978. Between 1978 and 2011, there were few occasions when she travelled to the U.S. Even f the country gave inspiration to a song or two (Coffee Homeground from Lionheart (1978) among them), a potentially golden promotional jaunt in 1985 did not pan out. It was not a complete car crash. There was one or two interviews that were not too bad. Kate Bush did sign copies of Hounds of Love at Tower Records. She was there twice at that New York record shop. On 17th November, 1985, she was there. This was just before her appearances on Live at Five and Nightflight. In spite of all the awkwardness and some interviews that were a bit of a waste of her time, there were some good moments. At least Hounds of Love got exposure. There were plenty of fans there embracing her. I think that it was the media that was the problem. Bush was, as always, professional and patient. Maybe she did enjoy a few of the interviews. It was not only the Nightflight chat that was embarrassing and a wreck. You look at some videos and you wonder what interviewers were wondering. What sort of artist they were expecting! It couldn’t have been pleasant for Kate Bush to come into these interviews and not be understood. To almost have to hold her tongue.
On the positive side, she did get her music played. A good chart position for Hounds of Love. She did go back to America. Her albums fared quite well. Even if the country took until a couple of years ago to really connect with Kate Bush, there was this sense of engagement in 1985. A moment when she was too big to ignore. Rather than it being this occasion where she had these great and informed interviews, there was a mix of the awful and less so. It must have been quite jarring for her when things were over. It still surprises me that there was mixed reaction to her in America in 1985. Such a huge and genius album like Hounds of Love did not quite penetrate and resonate. I do not know why there was hesitation. American interviewers should have been more prepared. It was not like the album suddenly popped up and they had no time to research. It goes to show what artists had to face. This rotation of interviews where the other person was not really engaged or informed. Testament to Kate Bush’s strength and kindness that she answered questions and did not lose her temper. I wonder what she thinks of that brief time in the U.S. in 1985. There would have been some highlights (the MTV experience was not too bad). That Tower Records signing would have been amazing. The odd interview was okay. All of this whirlwind and promotion happened on 17th November, 1985:
“Kate flies on the Concorde to New York (via Washington, D.C.) to promote the album and single. She makes a personal appearance at the Tower Record Store in Greenwich Village for which the queue extends for hundreds of yards around the block. She appears on the local New York news programme Live at Five, and tapes an interview for later airing on the cable programmes Night Flight, Heartlight City and Radio 1990. She also visits the MTV studios to tape a brace of short interviews. She is also interviewed by Love-Hound Doug Alan.
A track from the new album, Hello Earth, is featured as background music for a scene in the then-top-rated U.S. TV series Miami Vice.
From New York, Kate travels to Toronto where she tapes at least five more interviews (all from the same studios). These will appear on various Canadian programmes, including the national evening news, Much Music, The New Music, Good Rockin' Tonite, and various local news reports”.
It was a busy time for her. Maybe things were so hectic she shook off the U.S. pretty quickly. I do sympathise with her. She travelled a long way and was not quite met with the love she deserved. I am endlessly fascinated by her 1985 trip. Even if some embraced her with open arms, that was not the case with everyone. The divine Kate Bush deserved…
MUCH more respect.