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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left That's podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm really excited today because my guest is the cultural force,

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Speaker 1: the innovator in the Thompson Twins. Tom Bailey, Hello, good okay.

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Speaker 1: I remember seeing you with the Greek and the rumor

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Speaker 1: was that someone had cut off your ponytail and you

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Speaker 1: were wearing a fake ponytail. What's the real story there?

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Speaker 1: It was self inflicted actually, because there were a few

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Speaker 1: attempts to capture my ponytail as a kind of trophy

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Speaker 1: or something, you know. And I actually did get to

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Speaker 1: the stage where someone was creeping up behind me with

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Speaker 1: a pair of scissors, and I thought, you know, this

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Speaker 1: could end up in a sad way, so I cut

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Speaker 1: it off myself. And then everyone said you can't do that.

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Speaker 1: And I think for a while I had a fake one,

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Speaker 1: but it didn't last long. I what a question to

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Speaker 1: start with, buff right? You know, as I say that,

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Speaker 1: that was back, you know, before the Internet, when you

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Speaker 1: fought for every tidbit from the rock press and we

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Speaker 1: uh strayed to the important issue exactly. So you're in

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Speaker 1: l A. Now, what are you up to these days? Well,

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Speaker 1: I just spent the Southern Hemisphere summer in New Zealand,

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Speaker 1: which is what I do every year, and I'm heading

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Speaker 1: back to Europe, so this trip brings me halfway home.

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Speaker 1: And okay, so how many gigs did you do uh

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Speaker 1: in New Zealand, Australia, etcetera. None. I did one private

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Speaker 1: gate for a friend, just to help them out. And okay,

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Speaker 1: well let's go back. You live there, now, that's one

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Speaker 1: of your houses. Yeah? Yeah, Well what I do is

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Speaker 1: I live in France, Okay, in the mountains, in the mountains,

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Speaker 1: like the Alps, the Pyrenees. Oh really, down by Spain,

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Speaker 1: that's right. Are you a skier? No, I'm not, because

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Speaker 1: we're diverting from the story here. But I broke both

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Speaker 1: my thumbs on a ski slope once and I couldn't

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Speaker 1: play the piano for six months, and that kind put

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Speaker 1: me off. Whenever I've tried subsequently, I just think I'm

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Speaker 1: not enjoying this. How long ago did you break your thumbs?

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Speaker 1: Twenty years? Okay? So you basically live in France, okay,

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Speaker 1: in the mountains, but it gets so cold and like

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Speaker 1: it goes to minus twenty five in the winter, right, Okay,

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Speaker 1: this is an old stone house it's not a place

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Speaker 1: to be when it gets to minus study five, right,

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Speaker 1: And we also have a place in New Zealand, so

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Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense to go and catch

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Speaker 1: the southern summer then, and which I landed New Zealand

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Speaker 1: and the North Island in Auckland City, right, Okay, So

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Speaker 1: where are you from? Originally in the north of England.

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Speaker 1: I was born in Hannif. I was kind of brought

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Speaker 1: up in South Yorkshire, North Derbyshire. Okay. Now, if you

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Speaker 1: live in England, we're familiar with all those things. For

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Speaker 1: the English listeners. For an American listener, where he is, okay,

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Speaker 1: conjure up a kind of bleak, northern, grim industrial landscape

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Speaker 1: with me standing in the middle of it. And what

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Speaker 1: did your parents do for a living? Um? That all

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Speaker 1: my family medical? My fat it was a public health epidemiologist.

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Speaker 1: My mother was the nursing matron of a hospital. My

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Speaker 1: younger sister is a sexual health doctor. My elder sister

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Speaker 1: after care bone specialist. So what happened to you? But

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Speaker 1: if there's anything wrong with you, come to me first. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So you're in the middle child, I am, yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: So you grow up? Is there music in the house. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: very much, especially from my father, you know, who was

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Speaker 1: a kind of keen amateur organist, actually a kind of

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Speaker 1: church organ and choir guy. Um. He wasn't particularly religious.

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Speaker 1: I think he grew up in a kind of small

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Speaker 1: northern industrial community where you had to go to church

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Speaker 1: otherwise you weren't part of the community. Um, and he

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Speaker 1: chose to get involved in that side of things rather

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Speaker 1: than the religious side, which seems like a smart move

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Speaker 1: to me, I think. And I did a similar thing,

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Speaker 1: you know. I went to church and I was in

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Speaker 1: the choir and learning about all of that stuff. Okay,

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Speaker 1: we're similar ages, and there was certainly no in the

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Speaker 1: in America. What you did. We had a transistor radio.

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Speaker 1: You put it under your pillow and you listen to

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Speaker 1: the baseball game, okay, and then all of a sudden

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Speaker 1: the Beatles hit. Okay. What was it like living in

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Speaker 1: the UK because we're of similar ages. Well, we didn't

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Speaker 1: have baseball, that's for sure, but we did have offshore

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Speaker 1: pirate radio stations like Luxembourg and things like that, which

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Speaker 1: became the thing to listen to under your pillow, and

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Speaker 1: it was an incredibly exciting moment. Um. I can remember

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Speaker 1: hearing bands like the Beatles for the first time in

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Speaker 1: that very way, and it changed everyone's lives, right, It

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Speaker 1: certainly changed our lives. I mean, we're here in America,

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Speaker 1: we're still running another fumes of the Beatles. So you

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Speaker 1: listen to the Beatles, you're like seven years old. Does

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Speaker 1: that incite you to play or want to make music? No?

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Speaker 1: Infact I was a little bit of a stick in

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Speaker 1: them because I had a classical music training, right, so

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Speaker 1: it was a little bit of an unbearable snob at

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Speaker 1: seven years old and refusing to to really enjoy what

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Speaker 1: was happening with the Beatles. I got into the Middles

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Speaker 1: a little late. So after the after the kind of

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Speaker 1: public song era, I was into the psychedelic era. Really, Now,

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Speaker 1: were you into any other bands at that time? The

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Speaker 1: Rolling Stones where there's a plethora of British as we

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Speaker 1: call British invasion acts, so many things, I mean, the

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Speaker 1: Beatles first, to be honest, down the Stones, and then

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Speaker 1: into all of the kind of counterculture bands of the

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Speaker 1: time when rock and roll meant something to do with

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Speaker 1: changing the world. Right. Oh, you know, I remember those days.

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Speaker 1: You know, people will always say, now, oh, you're too

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Speaker 1: old you don't get it, they said, no, we live

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Speaker 1: through something like you live through. The internet really changed everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: of course. And it's the funny thing to to note that.

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Speaker 1: I think one way of saying is that the kind

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Speaker 1: of search lamp of culture, the searchlight falls on different

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Speaker 1: things at different times. I remember, for example, for UPL

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Speaker 1: in the eighties, suddenly, to be in a dance club

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Speaker 1: it was like the hippest thing in the world, not

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Speaker 1: as if they hadn't existed before, but there was something

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Speaker 1: going on where things changed, and it was to do

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Speaker 1: with the kind of music was being played, the kind

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Speaker 1: of behavior that was suddenly allowed, and the display of

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Speaker 1: sexuality that was allowed suddenly. So wow. For a few years,

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Speaker 1: dance clubs were the critical marketplace for ideas, and then

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Speaker 1: suddenly it wasn't. How when you say that, are you

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Speaker 1: talking about like the Menchester sound and that stuff before that?

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Speaker 1: Even before that, Yeah, I think suddenly I remember, you know,

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Speaker 1: going to clubs in London and bumping into people that

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Speaker 1: subsequently became world famous, like George and they was hanging

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Speaker 1: around in clubs and well, okay, so but let's go

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Speaker 1: back to the North. So you're there and are you

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Speaker 1: like a good student. I'm the laziest students in the world.

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Speaker 1: I think. I think it was fascinated by music and

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Speaker 1: not else. But I had a kind of bleak northern

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Speaker 1: classical education, and um, some of it rubbed off, I guess.

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Speaker 1: So you're still a snob today. Now you know the

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Speaker 1: terms are flipped between the UK and the US. Did

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Speaker 1: you go to a public school, private school or did

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Speaker 1: you go to a public school? Well? I went to

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Speaker 1: what you call a public school, and we call a

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Speaker 1: private school the government school. Yeah, okay, a grammar school

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Speaker 1: we call them. Okay. And how long did you go for? Well?

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Speaker 1: I did the whole high school thing. Then what about college?

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Speaker 1: And then I went to college and studied music and

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Speaker 1: fine arts. Okay, so you graduated from college. Yeah, okay.

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Speaker 1: This is something you wanted to do or you were

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Speaker 1: doing for your parents. I think it was a bit

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Speaker 1: of both. I mean, I think they wanted me to

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Speaker 1: probably to go and study medicine or something much more academic,

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Speaker 1: and I kind of chiseled away until I got an

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Speaker 1: offer to do music and art, which is with my loves. So, um,

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Speaker 1: I went to college to please them, but chose the

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Speaker 1: wrong subjects. Okay, well that you know, that's rare. We

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Speaker 1: always hear about people dropping out the UK and becoming musicians.

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Speaker 1: So you go to college, you finished college, then what's

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Speaker 1: the next step. I go to India to study yoga

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Speaker 1: and meditation. Okay, well you know, putting out my father's had.

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Speaker 1: First thing would say is an American? Well how did

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Speaker 1: you pay for that? Um? I guess I worked, you know,

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Speaker 1: like holiday jobs and saved money until I had enough

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Speaker 1: to go and I couldn't afford to fly. I went overland.

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Speaker 1: It took me seven weeks to get from London to

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Speaker 1: New Delhi. Okay, like the New Delhi free trainers. Little

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Speaker 1: feet would say, how do you how do you actually

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Speaker 1: get from London to Delhi? Go to Thrust from Amsterdam?

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Speaker 1: And like I said, it took seven weeks and it

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Speaker 1: took me through all sorts of near death experiences. Wait

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Speaker 1: a second, So you get the Amsterdam by train by

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Speaker 1: boat in trosen train now and then you're on a

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Speaker 1: bus for like six or seven weeks. What happens at night?

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Speaker 1: You sleep on the bus and is it the same

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Speaker 1: bus or you keep changing the same bus? And did

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Speaker 1: you go alone? No? With you know, thirty five hippies.

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Speaker 1: But but with all thirty five hippies were going from

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Speaker 1: me Amsterdam. But in terms of leaving the UK, did

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Speaker 1: you leave with thirty five people? No? No, No, half

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Speaker 1: a dozen people that I knew. And one friend in

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Speaker 1: particular who was a subsequent member of the Thompson to

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Speaker 1: was John Rugue. But we're both guitarists. We took our

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Speaker 1: guitars with us and we kind of paid our way

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Speaker 1: by playing basically, Okay, but you're on a bus for

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Speaker 1: six weeks, seven weeks? Yeah, Well, it did stop occasionally,

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Speaker 1: and he would stop occasionally, like for a day or

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Speaker 1: like a pit stop something like that. And so we

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Speaker 1: got to Afghanistan actually, and then um, I did spend

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Speaker 1: some time they're waiting for another bus to to take over,

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Speaker 1: which is a long, long story other people have asked

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Speaker 1: me about and I think I'll save that for writing

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Speaker 1: the books sometimes. Well, did sub think bad happen there? Yeah? Yeah, yeah?

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Speaker 1: And did you feel your life was threatened? Um? Oh,

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Speaker 1: very very definitely. Yeah, but you survived somehow and the

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Speaker 1: guitar was my constant companion. And okay, and how well

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Speaker 1: did you play before you get out of the bus um. God,

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Speaker 1: that's not for me to say, but I probably did

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Speaker 1: improve by having to play for my life on a

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Speaker 1: couple of occasions. And so then when it took seven

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Speaker 1: weeks to get there, then you were in India for

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Speaker 1: how long? Six months? Six months? Going where I went

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Speaker 1: to Rishikesh to see where the Beatles had been in

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Speaker 1: the astram with the Maharsh Maharishi mai Um in a

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Speaker 1: place called shank and there was a sign that said

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Speaker 1: fabulous beetles were here, and I knew I had landed.

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Speaker 1: But of course though those that era had passed, but

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Speaker 1: we were you know, we were kids wanted to learn

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Speaker 1: meditation and strong guitars and hang out and eat vegetarian

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Speaker 1: food and it was fabulous. Well well, but then you

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Speaker 1: traveled around India a little bit. Yes, I went down

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Speaker 1: south and then back up to the north. But it

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Speaker 1: actually started a love affair with Indian music that that

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Speaker 1: persisted to this day, you know. So I got to

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Speaker 1: India regularly and work with musicians and that's part of

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Speaker 1: my kind of labor of love that well, the first

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Speaker 1: time I went to India was just last summer. It's

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Speaker 1: just a fascinating place, isn't it. I mean, you're afraid

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Speaker 1: of getting sick, but it's where I was. Griffin was

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Speaker 1: won by you felt relatively safe. Yeah, but I mean

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Speaker 1: everyone gets a bit sick sometimes, you know, you wear

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Speaker 1: it with pride, I think, okay. So then it takes

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Speaker 1: seven weeks to get back from India. No, somehow, I

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Speaker 1: think there was a bit of scrabbling around for loose

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Speaker 1: cash and we managed to get cheap plane tickets. I

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Speaker 1: actually got very ill and there was a point where

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Speaker 1: I thought, you know what, I'm not getting better. Maybe

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Speaker 1: I should go back and faced My father, of course,

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Speaker 1: was the doctor, had a lot of stern words about

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Speaker 1: what we've been up to all the rest of it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: but then you obviously got better. Yeah, And what was

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Speaker 1: the next step? Um? I think I went to live

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Speaker 1: down in the southwest of England and was into kind

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Speaker 1: of experimental music, kind of work, shopping with other experimentalists,

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Speaker 1: and then I got a call from some old school friends,

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Speaker 1: including the guy i've into India with, and basically punk

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Speaker 1: had happened. And the thing about point was it gave

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Speaker 1: us permission to instead of looking at and watching other

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Speaker 1: bands doing it, it it gave us permission to do it ourselves,

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Speaker 1: so there was a very democratizing effect regardless of the

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Speaker 1: style of the music. It was like, have a go time, right,

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Speaker 1: you didn't have to be good. He's like even Lester

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Speaker 1: Banks was a musician playing his typewriter. So I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Before that, maybe it was just to beyond the dream

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Speaker 1: of a of a kind of regular guy from the

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Speaker 1: north of England. You know, that's what something that millionaires do,

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Speaker 1: and and we couldn't do it. But suddenly we could,

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Speaker 1: and so we had to go and we had the

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Speaker 1: original Thompson Twins, which was well, well, let's slow. You're

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Speaker 1: in the southwest of England. Yeah, I moved back up

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Speaker 1: to where I was raised in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. Yeah. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so then you're there and you're working jobs at this point. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I worked in a psychiatric hospital and then as a

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Speaker 1: teacher for a while, okay, and then you ultimately go

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Speaker 1: to London. Yeah. And if you look up legendarily it

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Speaker 1: says you were a squatter. Is that true? Absolutely, that's

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Speaker 1: the only way we could afford that done. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it was a lifeline to all sorts of creative activity

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Speaker 1: for many many people, you know, because by living for free,

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Speaker 1: you basically had time on your hands to be creative,

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Speaker 1: whereas if you paid rent, suddenly you know, you were

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Speaker 1: working every day and coming home exhausted and blah blah blah.

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Speaker 1: So it caused and in my in my street of

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Speaker 1: squatted houses, I think there was six or eight bands really,

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Speaker 1: so it really was a kind of hothouse of that

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Speaker 1: kind of activity. Okay, you know this is not something

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Speaker 1: most people do in America, So it's an abending building. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: what about like electricity and water. Well, there was a

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Speaker 1: peculiar de facto loophole in this in this argument where

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Speaker 1: the buildings were owned by the city council and they

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Speaker 1: thought that it was better to have people living in

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Speaker 1: them because a they looked after the buildings, be they

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Speaker 1: didn't go into the homeless register. So it was a

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Speaker 1: kind of, like I said, de facto solution to a

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Speaker 1: big problem. And as long as you didn't trash the

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Speaker 1: place for a while, at least they were happy and

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Speaker 1: it was a safe situation. Well I'm not saying that

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Speaker 1: exactly because you know, inevitably it was also the landing

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Speaker 1: place for a lot of desperate characters. You know, so

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Speaker 1: you had to be ready to jump out of bed

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Speaker 1: in the middle of the night sometimes. Okay, So you

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Speaker 1: moved down because you're friend from school went to India says,

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Speaker 1: now's the time. Um, I know. I moved back up

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Speaker 1: to Chester Villa, Derbyshire, where we'd all been at school together,

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Speaker 1: formed the band, then moved the band down to London,

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Speaker 1: you know, in seeking success because you know it's like

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Speaker 1: coming to Hollywood or something. Okay, but it was the

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Speaker 1: the punk era. But did you really think you could

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Speaker 1: have success? Yeah? I think so, as I'm saying that,

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Speaker 1: there was something about the punk era which said anyone

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Speaker 1: can have a go and look, there are bands making

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Speaker 1: it that are just doing it with three chords. You

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Speaker 1: don't have to be a kind of diamond encrusted jazz

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Speaker 1: enthusiastics in order to get through. So before the punk era,

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Speaker 1: did you think you were going to be a professional musician? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but not in a band. Well we're doing what probably teaching. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So you didn't wake up with dreams of stardom. I

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Speaker 1: think it ended up that way once it's kind of

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Speaker 1: tasted the kind of flavor of that. I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: a very alluring thing, isn't it too? To be part

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Speaker 1: of something very exciting and to be adored for doing that,

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Speaker 1: um really hooks your ego like crazy, you know, and

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Speaker 1: and in a way that gives you the energy to

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Speaker 1: pursue and put the extra work in which it takes.

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Speaker 1: It takes a lot of hard work to do this,

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Speaker 1: So you can't do it unless somehow you're totally enthusiastic. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so there were six like six billions in the Squats.

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Speaker 1: Then other than yourself and your meat, did anybody else

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Speaker 1: make it from that error? Yes, the Slits and the

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Speaker 1: pop group the Slits, there was. The woman in the

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Speaker 1: Slits wrote that book a couple of years ago. She's

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Speaker 1: a great writer. Okay, so now you're in the squat,

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Speaker 1: you're rehearsing every day. Yeah, what's the next step after that?

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Speaker 1: I was just looking for gigs everywhere, and then, you know,

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Speaker 1: as soon as we can, we buy an old try

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Speaker 1: can old van, and then we start to buy bits

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Speaker 1: and pieces of p A equipment, just so that if

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Speaker 1: anyone wants a gig, we can just offer the whole solution.

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Speaker 1: You know, have van m p A will travel was

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Speaker 1: the kind of motto of the moment um. So we

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Speaker 1: did that for a while and then started releasing our

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Speaker 1: own singles on our own Okay, first question, you weren't

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Speaker 1: worried about all that p p A equipment getting stolen? Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but we put paddlelocks on the doors of the Okay,

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Speaker 1: and now you wanted to make a record. What do

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Speaker 1: you do for money? What do you do for studio? Producer? Engineer?

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Speaker 1: We begged and borrowed time from a friend who had

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Speaker 1: access to a studio and someone who eventually became our publisher.

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Speaker 1: I was starting out in the music business and had

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Speaker 1: a little studio and things, so yeah, they gave us time,

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Speaker 1: and we did the first record that way, and then

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Speaker 1: slowly but surely we were chopping around for a deal

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Speaker 1: and it's you know, it came, but not not in

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Speaker 1: one big kind of arrival moment. We had to work

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Speaker 1: hard for it, and in fact, we put out a

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Speaker 1: couple of albums before we had any kind of hit.

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Speaker 1: But we were well known in the kind of student

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Speaker 1: venue circuit for putting on a good show. How many

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Speaker 1: shows were you playing at that time? I have no idea.

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Speaker 1: We're playing a lot or a little a lot? Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: would you play any covers? Were all original? I? Was

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Speaker 1: going to say all original, but there were a couple

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Speaker 1: of occasions when we played covers um just for fun,

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Speaker 1: but nothing that became well known for us to play.

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Speaker 1: So then how do you get a record deal? Well,

334
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Speaker 1: in those days you just just kind of trail around

335
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Speaker 1: the record companies with a cassette and throw cassette, give

336
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Speaker 1: them cassettes and watch them throw them over their shoulders

337
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Speaker 1: kind of thing. And I think the magic moment was

338
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Speaker 1: instead of giving them a cassette, you have your independent

339
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Speaker 1: release single and they reluctantly will have to listen to that.

340
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Speaker 1: People like John Peel started playing us on the radio.

341
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Speaker 1: We got some an unexpected and unpaid for promotion that way,

342
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Speaker 1: and then suddenly a record company goes, oh that's of interest,

343
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Speaker 1: and we signed, actually with the German company called Hanser

344
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Speaker 1: did an album, but we were distributed in the UK

345
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Speaker 1: through Arista, and we thought this is crazy what we

346
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Speaker 1: go when we really go go directly with Ariston and

347
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Speaker 1: we ended up on the label. Okay, when did you

348
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Speaker 1: get a manager? Oh around about that time, I think

349
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Speaker 1: when we were looking for the deal, and he was

350
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Speaker 1: another college friend. You know, just how long was he

351
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Speaker 1: the manager? Through the hit years and where is he today?

352
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Speaker 1: He lives in England and in the southwest of England.

353
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Speaker 1: Not in the music business an right, Okay, so you're

354
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Speaker 1: you're making progress, but on some level you're struggling. Yeah,

355
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Speaker 1: because we hadn't made it yet with a position in

356
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Speaker 1: any chart. Okay. So was there tension in the band,

357
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Speaker 1: people threatening to quit, etcetera. It came to that, but

358
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Speaker 1: there was a kind of embarrassing moment that brought this

359
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Speaker 1: all to the four and in our second album, which

360
00:20:15,760 --> 00:20:20,000
Speaker 1: luckily we got produced by Steve Lilly White, which was

361
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Speaker 1: an amazing kind of step forward for for people in

362
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Speaker 1: our situation. This was before now, this was actually on Arista,

363
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Speaker 1: but we hadn't yet had a hit. Okay, so we

364
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:32,320
Speaker 1: were just doing our thing. Did you get lily White?

365
00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:38,760
Speaker 1: He must have liked us. I don't know. These things happen. Um,

366
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Speaker 1: So we're making an album and we didn't have enough

367
00:20:42,800 --> 00:20:46,920
Speaker 1: material and at that moment I just got enough money

368
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Speaker 1: to buy a synthesizer. So during the time of those

369
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Speaker 1: albums sessions, I was at home with a synthesizer, which

370
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Speaker 1: what was the synthesizer? It was an Oberheim b x

371
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Speaker 1: A And for years that was the only SYNTHI ever you, okay,

372
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Speaker 1: because it was quite expensive and I couldn't afford more.

373
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Speaker 1: But anyway, at home, I wrote this song on the synthesizer,

374
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Speaker 1: which I thought, this is catchy, it's not like the

375
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Speaker 1: other stuff. But when we ran out of enough material

376
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Speaker 1: for the album, I said to everyone in the band,

377
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Speaker 1: it's all right, I've got this other song, and what

378
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:24,040
Speaker 1: I'll do is I'll come in and teach you parts

379
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:28,120
Speaker 1: to replace what I played on the synthesizer, which we did,

380
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Speaker 1: and it became this dance track call in the Name

381
00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:35,119
Speaker 1: of Love unbelievable. It will really white produce that he did, Yeah, okay,

382
00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:39,879
Speaker 1: in the Name jumped out of the radio. There you go. Well.

383
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Speaker 1: The embarrassing thing was it was supposed to be the

384
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Speaker 1: filler at the end of side and it ended up

385
00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:53,360
Speaker 1: being the big international dance hit that in a way

386
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:56,280
Speaker 1: was writing on the wall for me that I needed

387
00:21:56,320 --> 00:21:59,480
Speaker 1: to pursue this more kind of what I thought of

388
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Speaker 1: as a high tech approach to making music. And within

389
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:06,879
Speaker 1: a few months of I think, we toured for a while.

390
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:08,919
Speaker 1: But within a few months of that the band had

391
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:13,480
Speaker 1: kind of imploded. It wasn't what it used to be anymore.

392
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Speaker 1: And basically the three of us that became the famous

393
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Speaker 1: Thompson Twins if you like that, Myself, Joe and Alana.

394
00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:27,680
Speaker 1: We we became this kind of studio unit in which

395
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:29,879
Speaker 1: we realized for the first time that we weren't a

396
00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:33,000
Speaker 1: band that had to write parts for us to play.

397
00:22:33,280 --> 00:22:36,320
Speaker 1: We were designers of records. And that was a kind

398
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:40,000
Speaker 1: of transforming realization. Suddenly we weren't thinking, well, what's the

399
00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:42,520
Speaker 1: guitarist going to do in this So one of the

400
00:22:42,600 --> 00:22:45,120
Speaker 1: first things we did was make an album without any guitars,

401
00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:49,040
Speaker 1: and that was really liberating for us. Suddenly it was

402
00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:57,520
Speaker 1: about songs, sounds, experiments, and technology. Okay, were the other

403
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:03,119
Speaker 1: members of the being angry, some more than others, probably,

404
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:06,560
Speaker 1: But I think there was a natural end to the

405
00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:09,320
Speaker 1: ark of, you know, the narrative arc of that of

406
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:14,679
Speaker 1: that lineup. And so I mean, I'm still close to two,

407
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:19,320
Speaker 1: at least two of the other members I see quite often.

408
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:27,399
Speaker 1: And are they in music, um unprofessionally yes. There Now,

409
00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:31,440
Speaker 1: when you know the Thompson Twins hit and you looked

410
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 1: at the three members, it looked like you were essentially

411
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:42,480
Speaker 1: the act. What exactly did a Lota and Joe contribute,

412
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:46,160
Speaker 1: I would say as in me well, Um, we had

413
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:49,439
Speaker 1: an actually formal division of labor in the Thompson Twins

414
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: that you you know that you know well, which is

415
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 1: that I did the music and the recording. We wrote

416
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:59,200
Speaker 1: songs together, although that was mostly a lander on words

417
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:02,560
Speaker 1: and me on the music. Joe contributed occasionally but not

418
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 1: very much, although we're equally credited in all songs. Um.

419
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:11,399
Speaker 1: So I did all the studio work. Atlanta was in

420
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 1: charge of the visual image, so she did photos, clothing

421
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 1: videos which were just exploding as as a new means

422
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 1: of promotion, and Joe did the live show because he

423
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:25,199
Speaker 1: had a kind of theater background. He wanted to get

424
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:27,920
Speaker 1: all the lighting and stuff sorted out and make the

425
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:32,160
Speaker 1: drama of it. So we stuck to that very very clear.

426
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 1: Was actually written down in a kind of weird manifesto

427
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:37,880
Speaker 1: when we set out, Okay, these are aims and objectives

428
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 1: and this is how we're going to do it. So

429
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 1: it was a peculiarly rational and kind of hyper organized

430
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 1: approach that we took at that point. Okay, well, you

431
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:52,920
Speaker 1: know the old expression, and where there's a hit, there's

432
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:56,760
Speaker 1: a writ In this particular case, as the b M

433
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 1: cub successful, then it goes past his success. I mean,

434
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:05,880
Speaker 1: are people used with the songs individually? Joe didn't contribute much.

435
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:12,000
Speaker 1: Does that anger the other members of the royalty participants? Well,

436
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,879
Speaker 1: it shouldn't do, because there's something about being in a

437
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 1: band that that implies you're all in it together to

438
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:20,320
Speaker 1: some extent, you know, And that's the way it goes

439
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: when you when you're seeking success together and who knows

440
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 1: what may happen, then I think you will throw your

441
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:31,239
Speaker 1: hats into the same ring. However, there's another way of

442
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 1: doing it, which is where you know, the main songwriter

443
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,879
Speaker 1: gets all the money, and that can lead to a

444
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:42,880
Speaker 1: lot of hard feeling. I think, Um, because a band

445
00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 1: is a band as a band if there's some magic

446
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 1: to be exploited in that band, and I think it

447
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: should be recognized. And there's another rather peculiar thing as well,

448
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:56,360
Speaker 1: which is if you say everyone gets paid equally regardless,

449
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 1: then people stop suggesting half witted ideas to just get

450
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 1: their foot in the door of the of the money flow.

451
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 1: You know, they say, well, I'm going to be well

452
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 1: off regardless. So um, I think that was something we

453
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: realized in the previous incarnation of the band that it's

454
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:18,960
Speaker 1: not about everyone making suggestions just so they can earn money.

455
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: So the first album you do as the three is

456
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 1: quick Step and Psychic, which I think was just called

457
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 1: Sidekicks here in the States, and we recorded it in

458
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 1: substantially anyway in the Bahamas and Compass Point Studios with

459
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 1: Alex Sadkin, who to me was just a name on

460
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 1: a label. You know. I've seen Bob Marley and Grace

461
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: Jones records with Alex Sadkin written under that, So it

462
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:49,959
Speaker 1: was it was a great pleasure to do that. And

463
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 1: of course he was super smart and taught me a

464
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: lot about how to make a good record. What do

465
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: he what do he teach you? I think that kind

466
00:26:57,440 --> 00:26:59,959
Speaker 1: of level of perfectionism because he didn't come so much

467
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 1: from the kind of the drama of rock and roll.

468
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,920
Speaker 1: He was. He started out as a cutting engineer, t boy,

469
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:09,640
Speaker 1: you know. So he worked at Criterion Students, I think

470
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:12,680
Speaker 1: in Miami and learned how to cut a good record,

471
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 1: and he learned that you can't have the fattest based

472
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 1: sound in the world if you also want the biggest guitar.

473
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 1: You know, there's a compromise to be made. And and

474
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: and so he's looking for those sounds, the shape and

475
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 1: size of the snare drum, which is gonna groove the

476
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: song along but not take up too much space. And

477
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:35,119
Speaker 1: I think when you listened to reggae records, there's something

478
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:37,119
Speaker 1: to be learned there. You know, everything has their place

479
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:40,640
Speaker 1: in terms of frequency. They don't compete with each other.

480
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 1: Rock music is a mess by comparison. You know, all

481
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: the instruments are getting each other's way and it makes

482
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:50,120
Speaker 1: a kind of glorious mess. But he came more from

483
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: the reggae um experience, I think, and we're all the

484
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 1: songs written before you go out there. So how long

485
00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:01,919
Speaker 1: did it take to cut the record? I think we

486
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 1: did like a month and a half in the Bahamas

487
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:06,199
Speaker 1: and then went and finished it and mixed it in

488
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 1: rack studios in London. So in terms of you know,

489
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 1: the record companies usually don't pay for that kind of

490
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 1: stuff at this point in time. But in terms of

491
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:18,920
Speaker 1: going a compass point, if you're thinking, as somebody, well, okay,

492
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:24,439
Speaker 1: I'm traveling away from home. It's a relaxation party place.

493
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 1: How do you make a record in that environment? Oh?

494
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:31,879
Speaker 1: We were driven, I mean, you're right, we didn't. We

495
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: didn't really know what we're getting into. And we remember

496
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:36,440
Speaker 1: we turned up with our kind of London winter clothes.

497
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 1: We were punks that we had leather jackets and jeans

498
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: and it's incredibly hard. So the first thing we had

499
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 1: to do was virtually strip make in order to get

500
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 1: any work done. Um. But because there was a culture

501
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 1: of getting on with a lot of great records got

502
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 1: made there. Um. There was a slightly overrelaxed kind of

503
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: island vibe which irritated me a bit. But I've seen

504
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,160
Speaker 1: got into swimming out to the reef every morning before working.

505
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: That you know, put me in the mood. Hey. Um,

506
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: we we did good work there, and I think it

507
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 1: was just because we were driven. And that was also

508
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 1: in the pre internet era, so there are fewer distractions. Absolutely,

509
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 1: it was we had, as I recall, we had to

510
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: book phone calls, so if we wanted to get in

511
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: touch with New York or London, we had to kind

512
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 1: of put in a request to the local telephone exchange. Now,

513
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: ARIA still was run by Clive Davis, historically interferes with

514
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: the artistic process of the act. Everyone warned us, hey,

515
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 1: whatever you do, don't get him involved. And he. I mean,

516
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 1: luckily he had other distractions at the time, I'll put

517
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: it that way, including some great artists that he was

518
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:49,600
Speaker 1: concentrating on. So we almost kind of snuck under the

519
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 1: radar as the kind of act that everyone thought Clive

520
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: won't understand. And maybe he did more than we gave

521
00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: him credit for, but we didn't have a great deal

522
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 1: to do with him in terms of Clive, what do

523
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: you think about this latest record and what should we do?

524
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 1: It was more A and rd from the UK in fact,

525
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:12,480
Speaker 1: by Simon Potts. And yeah, as as I said, we

526
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 1: got warned to keep out of out of the clutches

527
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: of it. So when the record is finished, do you

528
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: think you have a hit because you had in the

529
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: Name of Love that was on the previous record, right, So, um, yes,

530
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 1: I think we wrote four songs that we thought we

531
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: were in the bag with, you know. And to this

532
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 1: day that's one of my rules, like when you've got

533
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 1: four songs you feel confident about, there's a glorious moment,

534
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: then you can start going way left of center because

535
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 1: you know you're safe. So instead of always looking for hits,

536
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: you can do something a little bit more experimental. So

537
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: I think We went there with a with a feeling

538
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 1: that we we've kind of nailed it somehow, and the

539
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 1: record comes out and what happens We had our first

540
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: um TV and chart regular chart hit with Love on

541
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: your Side in the UK. So finally we caught up,

542
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:10,479
Speaker 1: you know, because in the Name of Love was big

543
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 1: news in the States, but not so much in the UK.

544
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 1: So finally we're recognized in our hometown and things are

545
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: going off, and we tour worldwide and everything's good, and

546
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: we go to make a second album and everyone says, well,

547
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: let's do it the same way. We were enjoying working

548
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 1: with Alex Atkin. We liked to compass port. Let's go

549
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 1: back there and we'll mix it rack like we did before.

550
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:41,520
Speaker 1: But this time, before going we had written hold Me Now.

551
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: Hol May Now was one of those songs that just

552
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: insisted itself upon us, you know, and I knew this

553
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: was massive, So we recorded it in London at Rack

554
00:31:54,160 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 1: Studios before going there with Alex. Um I did it

555
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 1: on my own, and then Alex subsequently arrived very very

556
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 1: he was busy with someone else. I can't remember if

557
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 1: it was Duran, Durand or something. No, it wasn't it

558
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: was someone else. But anyway, by the time he showed up,

559
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: everything was done, apart from absolutely nailing the vocal. So

560
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 1: he helped me get the vocal because it's very difficult

561
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 1: to produce your own vocal, you know, you have to

562
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 1: wear two hats. And again to this day when it

563
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: comes to the vocals, I like to just be the

564
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: singer and not be the producer. Um So we did that,

565
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:33,719
Speaker 1: and then we went to Compass Point with a single

566
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: going up the charts in the UK and in the

567
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 1: US and no phone contact, so we didn't know this,

568
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 1: but we knew that it was out there doing business

569
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: for us. And then one day, you know, we book

570
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: a phone call two someone at Arista in New York

571
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: and they're just going crazy that this record it is

572
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 1: super hot. They were so excited, and of course the

573
00:32:58,000 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: excitement got through to us. But the point of the

574
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 1: story is that it's set a very high standard. With

575
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 1: that excitement coming from the rest of the world, we

576
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 1: knew the album had to be brilliant. We weren't just

577
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 1: fooling around anymore, you know, we were deadly serious about it,

578
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 1: and I think that's some of our best work. You know,

579
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 1: I love that album. And I listen to Doctor Doctor,

580
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: just the way it starts off and into the Gap.

581
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: I mean I listened to it, not because we were

582
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:25,960
Speaker 1: doing this. I mean I tell you a story after

583
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 1: story of listening to that album, and you know, it's

584
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: just etherorial. It's like in another world that it was made,

585
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 1: like you're visiting another galaxy and it still stands up today. Well,

586
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 1: I'm glad you think that. I mean, I kind of

587
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 1: agree with you. We were hot. I mean, we're working

588
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:44,200
Speaker 1: with the right people in terms of the engineering producer,

589
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:46,719
Speaker 1: and it just captured what we wanted to do at

590
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: that time. We'd become less Uh, it's interesting. I think

591
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: we've become less technical about the arrangement. The previous album, Psychics,

592
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: was all synthesizers and drum machines, whereas In to the

593
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 1: Gap saw guitars and pianos and strings and stuff appearing.

594
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 1: So we were opening our palette to the possibilities of

595
00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 1: of making kind of classic pop records. Okay, go back,

596
00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: how did all me now come together? Alanna and I

597
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 1: who we're in a relationship with someone had a big

598
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 1: fight actually, and we had you know, the way I

599
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 1: explained it is that you know, adults sometimes have to

600
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: get over those kind of things and make friends again,

601
00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 1: and we did, and the song grew out of that

602
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: experience of what it's like to kind of feel terrible

603
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 1: about what's happened in a relationship and then finally find

604
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:43,880
Speaker 1: her way of getting it back together again. And she

605
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: wrote the lyrics and you wrote the music. We wrote

606
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 1: the lyrics between us, and I think I wrote all

607
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 1: the music. And how fast did it come together? I

608
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,239
Speaker 1: think it was immediate. I was all written in an

609
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: evening um. But then Joe, who subsequently turned up, made

610
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:05,359
Speaker 1: some suggestions about the melody of the verse I seem

611
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 1: to recall, so he did contribute to that song, um

612
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 1: in the eleventh hour. Okay, so you wrote the song, yeah,

613
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 1: and you immediately knew this was a hit. Yes, I

614
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 1: mean if you do get those feelings, so I mean

615
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 1: maybe those maybe those feelings can sometimes fool you they're

616
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:26,360
Speaker 1: kind of shimeric or something. But I often get that

617
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:31,319
Speaker 1: kind of heartbeat that mrs A bait, and you go, wow,

618
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: this is something special. Pursue it, Tom, don't let this

619
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 1: one get away, you know. So I definitely felt it

620
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 1: over that songe. Okay, when you feel that way. Are

621
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:45,920
Speaker 1: you afraid you're gonna suck it up? Unwax um, I

622
00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 1: suck it up before I even get to wax. Sometimes,

623
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 1: you know, it's an incredibly responsible thing you have to.

624
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 1: I mean, these days, it's easier in a way because

625
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:57,759
Speaker 1: you can guard the version of the song that you

626
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 1: think is great, do more to it and go back

627
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:02,359
Speaker 1: to the original if you if if you feel you've

628
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:05,879
Speaker 1: lost your way. However, back in the day, I don't

629
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: think that was quite so easy. I mean, goodness knows

630
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: how many great songs have been rendered mediocre by overworking them.

631
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: I mean it must be true. I certainly hold my

632
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:19,279
Speaker 1: hand up to say that happens in um. But conversely,

633
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:23,080
Speaker 1: some mediocre ideas sometimes get polished into an interesting direction

634
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 1: that you never expected. So you know, swings and round events.

635
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:28,640
Speaker 1: So I just know, when rating something, sometimes you're regar

636
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:31,320
Speaker 1: while this is really good. Then you become self conscious

637
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:37,000
Speaker 1: and it can't quite sustain. Yeah, I think there's a okay,

638
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 1: there's something inherent in the quality of rock and roll,

639
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,239
Speaker 1: And I've always counted pop music as the kind of

640
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: it's in the family of rock and roll, even if

641
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: it's not the boss, right, it's the kids, sister. Now,

642
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 1: there's something about it which has to be dangerous. It

643
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:59,720
Speaker 1: can't just be cute and safe and in a comfort

644
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: zone in all its life. Otherwise it doesn't do the

645
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:03,760
Speaker 1: job it's meant to do, which is, you know, alert

646
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: you to possibilities and the revolutionary spirit of youth. And

647
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 1: those are the things that I think we work. We

648
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:17,360
Speaker 1: kind of iron out of our work by overdoing it,

649
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:22,720
Speaker 1: over polishing it. And actually it's a kind of obvious

650
00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 1: thing to say anyway, but as long as there's a

651
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:27,360
Speaker 1: kind of danger that things could go terribly wrong in

652
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 1: what you're doing, that's the kind of balance to maintain. Okay,

653
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:36,760
Speaker 1: let's jump forward. Because you said rock and roll in youth. Okay,

654
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:40,279
Speaker 1: you're not a member of the youth now, so can

655
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:42,840
Speaker 1: you capture the Z guys somehow and the music you

656
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:45,279
Speaker 1: make it? I mean, I'm so lucky to be able

657
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,279
Speaker 1: to put my finger on that nostalgic experience of it,

658
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 1: you know, and say, wow, this was so incredibly amazing

659
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 1: for most of my life and I can still feel it,

660
00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 1: and I can still remind other people of it as well. Um,

661
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,879
Speaker 1: I have to say, I'm having strange experience with contemporary

662
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:10,840
Speaker 1: pop music. I was doing something incredibly mundane yesterday and

663
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:15,759
Speaker 1: shopping for clothes in l A and I lost kind

664
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 1: of how many stores I was driven out of by

665
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 1: the inane music I was hearing. So and this deeply

666
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 1: troubles me because I'm someone who loves pop music, and

667
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 1: I can fight to find something in every piece of music.

668
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm generous, I can always find something

669
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,840
Speaker 1: that's good in it. But the averages weren't great yesterday,

670
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:41,760
Speaker 1: I tell you so for me, it's lost something special,

671
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:46,920
Speaker 1: and it is that evocation of the spirit of change

672
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 1: in the world. In other words, rock and roll was

673
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:54,320
Speaker 1: once a vehicle for social change. We did it because

674
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 1: we wanted the world to be a better place, not

675
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 1: because we wanted to be famous and rich and drive

676
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:06,320
Speaker 1: a fast car, which for sure we're subsequent benefits, but

677
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 1: that's not the So do you know what I mean?

678
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 1: Somehow that's become the reason you're speaking. You're preaching of

679
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 1: the converted here. But also I have to ask, as

680
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:18,040
Speaker 1: you touched on this, is it a matter of hip hop?

681
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:20,759
Speaker 1: Is it a matter of the tier it away? What

682
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 1: is it that bugs you? No, it's neither of those things.

683
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:29,360
Speaker 1: I mean, they sound like good things to me, okay.

684
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 1: I think one major thing, especially with pop music, is

685
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 1: that songs are written by committee now, and a few

686
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:40,239
Speaker 1: members of the committee are often wearing a marketing hat.

687
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: So in a general sense, you no longer trust the

688
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 1: voice of what's coming through the song. It's just made

689
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:54,239
Speaker 1: to be catchy and insistent and make you stream it

690
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 1: for a while and then go somewhere else. In other words,

691
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:02,880
Speaker 1: it's it's ambitions have changed to Lee. Okay, do you

692
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 1: believe forgetting thirteen writers you were in a band. How

693
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:13,400
Speaker 1: important is collaboration in the creative process. I think it

694
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 1: varies in importance from time to time, and I think

695
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: it's I think it's good for any creative people to

696
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,719
Speaker 1: do both. I love working on my own, but I

697
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:25,560
Speaker 1: also love working with other people, and sometimes it's very

698
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 1: clear to me that a different kind of work emerges

699
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: as a result of either practice. Do you think you're

700
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:35,319
Speaker 1: driven to higher height if you're working with somebody else,

701
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 1: I think you're driven away from your own repetitive thought

702
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: processes and into new ones. So it's a very valuable thing.

703
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:46,800
Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes I like to just produce other people

704
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: because it's not my ideas I'm just helping them to

705
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: get the best out of it, and that to me

706
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:55,359
Speaker 1: is a kind of eye opening thing. Oh wow, they've

707
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 1: done something I never would have thought of doing, and

708
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:00,279
Speaker 1: they turned around and and thank me. But actually I

709
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 1: should be thinking, Okay, so now you're on a massive

710
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: tour in the week of hold me now, good experience

711
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:09,800
Speaker 1: or bad experience? Good? Yes? And it was it was

712
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:14,719
Speaker 1: a NonStop party. And you know, I was Mr. Self

713
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:18,680
Speaker 1: discipline because by this stage I was not drinking or

714
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: doing drugs or anything. I was very, very soberly observing

715
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: and enjoying everything that went down. So how did you

716
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:34,520
Speaker 1: start doing drugs in alcohol? I just committed myself to

717
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 1: other activities and doing yoga and meditation and stuff like that.

718
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:43,279
Speaker 1: But what what inspired you to start the idea that

719
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:48,440
Speaker 1: there was something beyond just having a good time, um

720
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:50,920
Speaker 1: and then waking up the next morning feeling bad about it.

721
00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 1: But also, there's a lot of stresses. People use drugs

722
00:41:55,120 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 1: because they can't fall asleep on the road. So sure,

723
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:00,360
Speaker 1: and there were times I was jealous, you know. And

724
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,440
Speaker 1: interesting enough, that's how we got into country music, because

725
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:05,799
Speaker 1: you know, down the back of the bus after a gig,

726
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 1: everyone was partying, I will go and sit next to

727
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 1: the driver who was always listening to country. So you know,

728
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 1: I ended up buying Stetler brother albums that I didn't

729
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 1: even know existed before that, you know. And now are

730
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:21,840
Speaker 1: you in general are you a loner? No? No, I

731
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:27,319
Speaker 1: like the company of people. But do you need your

732
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 1: alone time? Yes? Right, okay, so then that's a massive success.

733
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: Do you make any money, yes, but not all of

734
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:42,359
Speaker 1: it fell into our bank accounts because we we ran

735
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:46,760
Speaker 1: the kind of um we around, the kind of operation

736
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 1: where if we had a successful album, we think great,

737
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 1: now we can put an even bigger show on in

738
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,239
Speaker 1: the next tour, you know, And we basically spent it

739
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:58,800
Speaker 1: all on the band rather than ourselves. Um, So we

740
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 1: didn't make person more fortunes, perhaps as big as we

741
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:08,359
Speaker 1: might have done. So then you make another record, another album. Yeah.

742
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:11,560
Speaker 1: The next one was his to Feature Days, and we

743
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 1: started off recording it ourselves, um in Paris um where

744
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 1: I actually became ill and things ground to our heart

745
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 1: and it was all a little bit of too much

746
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: pressure for me. And we were facing a tour that

747
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: I realized we wouldn't have the album ready for, so

748
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 1: we canceled this upcoming tour and thought, let's have a

749
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:37,080
Speaker 1: rethink about this. And at that moment Narl Rodgers got

750
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:38,360
Speaker 1: in touch with us and said he want to do

751
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:42,279
Speaker 1: it with us. So that was an interesting kind of

752
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:45,840
Speaker 1: morsel to to attract us to New York and do that.

753
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:52,279
Speaker 1: You got ill, But what was that about. I was

754
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:54,359
Speaker 1: living in Paris at the time. I think I got

755
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:57,720
Speaker 1: so stressed out with I was working in two studios simultaneously.

756
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:00,319
Speaker 1: It was driving me crazy, you know, and was all

757
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: to try and meet the false deadline of this tour

758
00:44:02,760 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 1: that had been booked on the assumption that we've finished

759
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:07,239
Speaker 1: the album, and I simply wasn't ready to walk away

760
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:12,360
Speaker 1: from the studios, so um, I had to kind of

761
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: cry halt to the process. And when it stopped, I

762
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: kind of collapse into an exhaustion that I've been holding

763
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 1: back on. I think, you know, because you do that.

764
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 1: I often do that at the end of a tour.

765
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 1: I think this is going fine, and then the day

766
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:34,400
Speaker 1: after a tour because the accumulated exhaustion, I've been in denial.

767
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:37,360
Speaker 1: I know exactly. You don't like sometimes I'm on the

768
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:39,799
Speaker 1: road for weeks and I enjoy going from place to place,

769
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 1: and as long as you're going from place to place,

770
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: you're fine. It's who stay at one place you crash. Yeah,

771
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: it's something like that. It's a denial of and of

772
00:44:47,239 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 1: course to travel into gig it's exciting, so you're living

773
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 1: on the adrenaline of that as well. It's the other problem.

774
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: But when we finally said okay, let's let's hold the

775
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:58,479
Speaker 1: album for a moment, wait until Nile is ready, because

776
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: he was working with someone else. Um, so we had

777
00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: a little break during which time I really went downhill.

778
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:07,880
Speaker 1: And then the album comes out and it is not

779
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 1: as successful as Into the Gap, not quite no, but

780
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 1: it was still a pretty successful record and took us

781
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:18,080
Speaker 1: around the world another time for a big tour. But

782
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:22,840
Speaker 1: maybe the kind of narrative arc of our kind of

783
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,719
Speaker 1: shiny pop success had begun, had gone over the peak,

784
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:29,279
Speaker 1: you know, and we had to turn into something else.

785
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:33,239
Speaker 1: And I think also at that point at the end

786
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 1: of that tours when Joe left, so we became the

787
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:41,040
Speaker 1: two pieces. And why did he leave, Well, we'd have

788
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 1: to ask him that, but I think it probably he

789
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:46,839
Speaker 1: felt they'd done enough and it wasn't going the way

790
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: he wanted to. I think he wanted to settle down

791
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:51,279
Speaker 1: with his girlfriend and not be chasing around. I mean,

792
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,800
Speaker 1: because Atlanta and I were together in a relationship, it

793
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 1: felt easy for us to just speak constantly on the

794
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 1: move because we were together, you know. But he us

795
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:04,839
Speaker 1: and squeezed out no, not at all, no, not in anyway. Okay,

796
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 1: so he's out of the beard, and what's the next step.

797
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 1: Then we became the two piece stops to It and

798
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 1: went on to make UM three albums that way, which

799
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:19,959
Speaker 1: was all fun. And but the nature of the music

800
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 1: business is changing, and I remember we kind of decided,

801
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 1: for example, we didn't even want to tour anymore. We

802
00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:28,840
Speaker 1: just want to make videos, and kind of it seemed

803
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,600
Speaker 1: like an exciting idea as an alternative to slugging around

804
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:34,320
Speaker 1: the world, to actually play to people via a screen.

805
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 1: I mean, now, I don't think that at all. I

806
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 1: think it's the most appalling way of trying to communicate

807
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:43,719
Speaker 1: with an audience. But then it seemed like a revolutionary

808
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:46,080
Speaker 1: idea that might bear fruit, and so we just kind

809
00:46:46,120 --> 00:46:49,840
Speaker 1: of talked ourselves out of touring UM And you know,

810
00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:52,239
Speaker 1: if we hold that thought, it ended up being nearly

811
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 1: thirty years until I went on the stage and sang

812
00:46:54,280 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: those songs again. But you end up moving to New Zealand.

813
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:08,760
Speaker 1: What was the thought there, Well, Atlanta was from New Zealand.

814
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:14,439
Speaker 1: We had kids, and I think she quite rightly thought

815
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 1: that's a great place to raise them. Um, and let's

816
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 1: get away from this because us, for as long as

817
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 1: we're in London, we're part of the music business, you know,

818
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 1: and so to retire from that, especially to retire from

819
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 1: mainstream pop music, it felt necessary to go and live

820
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 1: in the bush somewhere. And then the band turns into Babble. Yeah,

821
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:37,800
Speaker 1: but that had started in London before we left. We

822
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:40,279
Speaker 1: did one Babble album which I really adore. Actually, that

823
00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:44,279
Speaker 1: first Babble album, there's something about finally throwing off the

824
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:48,319
Speaker 1: shackles of having to write pop songs. So there must

825
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 1: have been a lot of stuff, a lot of accumulated

826
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 1: ideas that were never suitable for pop songs that got

827
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:58,440
Speaker 1: an expression in that album. And of course it was

828
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:01,160
Speaker 1: a strange thing. We we signed to a different company

829
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 1: at that point as well, to Warner, and changed our name,

830
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: and I don't know quite how we pulled that off.

831
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 1: They must have thought we were crazy, and we probably were.

832
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 1: In terms of our careers. But we simply had lost

833
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:16,320
Speaker 1: the desire to chase it anymore. You know. It was

834
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 1: about being creative, but not about Korea. Okay, but that

835
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 1: was nearly thirty years ago. Do you wake up one

836
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:27,279
Speaker 1: day and say, holy sh it, I'm not in the

837
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:32,879
Speaker 1: in the stream anymore? No, because I mean other water

838
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 1: has got under the British since then, and when I

839
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:38,920
Speaker 1: have raised family and you know, I'm I'm thirty years older.

840
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 1: So to me, in a way, the naive dream of

841
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:46,799
Speaker 1: the career was something that that I started with when

842
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 1: I was a teenager and gave up when I was

843
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:51,719
Speaker 1: thirty five or something. You know, I don't have that

844
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:56,440
Speaker 1: dream anymore. Um. I do it more because I love

845
00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:59,760
Speaker 1: it rather than because it's going to turn into something amazing.

846
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 1: So to be point blank, does the tops and twins

847
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:07,239
Speaker 1: or did it throw off enough money that okay, it

848
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 1: all works? You mean, do I have to tour now

849
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: or there's been thirty years? You know? Did you have

850
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:17,839
Speaker 1: to you know, what were you surviving for thirty years? Yeah? Yeah,

851
00:49:17,920 --> 00:49:22,040
Speaker 1: there was it was. There was trickling royalty checks all

852
00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 1: that time. I'm very lucky and it paid for me

853
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:28,959
Speaker 1: to do other things in music which weren't earning money,

854
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: like I have a project as a dub artist, as

855
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 1: an Indian classical artist, as um an experimental electronic artist,

856
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:41,319
Speaker 1: and as a film scorewriter as well. Now, apart from

857
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: the film scores, none of these other things were making money,

858
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 1: you know. But I thought, finally I've earned the chance

859
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:49,600
Speaker 1: to do these things which will always shove to one

860
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:52,680
Speaker 1: side where we were being quote unquote successful, you know.

861
00:49:53,239 --> 00:49:57,480
Speaker 1: So I spent thirty years doing that and I've had

862
00:49:57,520 --> 00:50:00,479
Speaker 1: a great time, and most of those projects are still

863
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 1: alive and kicking as well. It's just that they're so underground.

864
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:06,120
Speaker 1: Most people don't know about them, and that because that's

865
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:07,839
Speaker 1: the nature of underground, right, you don't get to hear

866
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:11,919
Speaker 1: about But are you angry or upset that they don't

867
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:16,719
Speaker 1: have as wider audience as they might know? No. In fact,

868
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 1: for me, part of the relief of those projects is

869
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 1: that you don't have to spend a lot of time

870
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:24,320
Speaker 1: promoting them. They just are what they are if people

871
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:27,000
Speaker 1: happen upon them and like them, and that's fine. They

872
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:30,280
Speaker 1: don't need to prove themselves in any other way. Whereas

873
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:33,240
Speaker 1: there's something about being in a pop group the reverse

874
00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 1: is true. You have to kind of push yourselves in

875
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:39,320
Speaker 1: front of people all the time and maximize every effort

876
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:43,719
Speaker 1: that you make. So you're in New Zealand. Ultimately the

877
00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:49,440
Speaker 1: relationship ends. How long ago was that, oh, sixteen seventeen

878
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 1: years okay? And then do you stay in New Zealand

879
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:56,480
Speaker 1: or what are you doing for a while? And then

880
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:02,680
Speaker 1: a ladder actually wanted to move back to London, and

881
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:04,920
Speaker 1: so to be so that we could carry on being

882
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:06,840
Speaker 1: parents to our kids, I agreed to go back to

883
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:11,040
Speaker 1: London as well, And so about fifteen sixteen years ago,

884
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:14,320
Speaker 1: and moved back to London. And then you got remarried.

885
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:18,360
Speaker 1: How did you meet your new wife? She is American,

886
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:23,719
Speaker 1: but I had met her in New Zealand and we

887
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:28,200
Speaker 1: still as a result of that, we because we both

888
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 1: have New Zealand in our histories, we started going back

889
00:51:30,719 --> 00:51:34,399
Speaker 1: there every winter, as I explained, and and so every

890
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 1: year we spent part of our part of our time there.

891
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 1: So you have two kids, I have two, she has three,

892
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:42,080
Speaker 1: So we have five. Okay, but start with your two kids.

893
00:51:42,120 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 1: What are they up to? My son is a musician.

894
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:52,479
Speaker 1: Is he off the payroll? Just about? Yes, he's actually

895
00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:56,120
Speaker 1: quite successful. In his own particular niche of very underground

896
00:51:56,960 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 1: electronic experimental music. He lives in Estonia, really, which is

897
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:06,840
Speaker 1: an interesting choice. I've been there at Talen. He doesn't.

898
00:52:07,440 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 1: It's exciting and also scary with you all Russian buildings. Yeah,

899
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:14,760
Speaker 1: but anyway, he seems to be happy there. My daughter,

900
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:21,920
Speaker 1: who shield kick me for saying this, but she dropped

901
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:24,439
Speaker 1: out of school and then spent a lot of time

902
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:31,239
Speaker 1: changing the world one joint at a time. And then

903
00:52:31,320 --> 00:52:32,960
Speaker 1: suddenly one day she said, I want to go back

904
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 1: to university. So she's studying philosophy. So how did you

905
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:41,960
Speaker 1: decide to go back on the road. Well, I had

906
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:44,880
Speaker 1: so firmly put my pop music career behind me. I

907
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:46,719
Speaker 1: was doing lots of other interesting things. Why would I

908
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 1: be even interested? And then one day I get a

909
00:52:48,239 --> 00:52:53,239
Speaker 1: call from a Mexican pop artist called Alex Sintech saying

910
00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:55,800
Speaker 1: he's got this crazy idea to write a song with

911
00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:58,839
Speaker 1: each of his childhood heroes, and I was one of them.

912
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 1: Would I do a fifty fifty deal with him? You know?

913
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:06,920
Speaker 1: So I thought this is crazy. I was slightly intrigued,

914
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:10,160
Speaker 1: and then, to my total shame, I thought, well, it's Mexico,

915
00:53:10,239 --> 00:53:13,759
Speaker 1: so no one will see me doing this, right. Um,

916
00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:17,160
Speaker 1: it was a way for me to slip back into it.

917
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: And once I've done it, I realized how which I

918
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:23,759
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. So there I was, I think, this is great.

919
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:26,080
Speaker 1: I've just written a pop song again for the first

920
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:30,719
Speaker 1: time in a long time. And then by chance I

921
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:34,719
Speaker 1: got a call from Howard Jones saying he was going

922
00:53:34,800 --> 00:53:37,239
Speaker 1: on tour in America wanted another artist to go on

923
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:42,040
Speaker 1: the bill, and was I interested? So how long ago

924
00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 1: was it? This is like four and a half five years, OK,

925
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:51,680
Speaker 1: So I tentatively agreed and found myself just carried along

926
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:58,440
Speaker 1: with his enthusiasm, and his management became my management as well,

927
00:53:58,600 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 1: and so it's um, I had a kind of easy

928
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 1: re entry into all of that stuff, and and for me,

929
00:54:07,160 --> 00:54:10,239
Speaker 1: it was just enjoyment, and I really really enjoyed. I

930
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:14,600
Speaker 1: was very nervous at first, and I recall that the

931
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:18,480
Speaker 1: first gig I did after all that time playing those songs,

932
00:54:20,040 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: I thought, I'll put it on a piece of introduction music,

933
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:25,080
Speaker 1: you know, before we go on stage, and I chose

934
00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:29,520
Speaker 1: two to make an instrumental of one of the songs.

935
00:54:29,560 --> 00:54:35,400
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to sing that, but everyone knew so

936
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:39,279
Speaker 1: waiting backstage this piece of music. It was called We

937
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:43,200
Speaker 1: Are Detective, and it was which is actually on the record.

938
00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 1: It's a duet between Atlanta and myself. So I'm not

939
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 1: going to do that live, um so an instrumental version

940
00:54:50,520 --> 00:54:52,640
Speaker 1: would be fine. But my point is this, while I'm

941
00:54:52,719 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 1: backstage and I'm biting my finger ins and thinking, oh

942
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:56,400
Speaker 1: my god, what have I done here? What have I

943
00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:59,959
Speaker 1: gotten into? I suddenly hear the audience singing the side,

944
00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:03,680
Speaker 1: and I realized then that everything was going to be okay.

945
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:07,880
Speaker 1: This isn't a little club in Reading because we were

946
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:11,800
Speaker 1: warming up the next day we played to people, but

947
00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:14,319
Speaker 1: this is our little warm up show, and a few

948
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:16,640
Speaker 1: fans have heard about it and gotten in and it

949
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 1: was very very special and and exciting. But you see

950
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:22,360
Speaker 1: what I mean, I saidn't realize it wasn't about me

951
00:55:22,520 --> 00:55:26,080
Speaker 1: getting it right. I had to show up and do

952
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:29,160
Speaker 1: my job, but the audience was going to do half

953
00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:30,920
Speaker 1: the work for me anyway, because they just want to

954
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:33,920
Speaker 1: hear those songs again for such a long time without them,

955
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:37,680
Speaker 1: you know, And from that point I was it was

956
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:40,239
Speaker 1: just all fun. So how many gigs a year do

957
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 1: you do? Well? Last year we did eighty five concerts,

958
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:47,279
Speaker 1: which was as busy as any time we did in

959
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:51,560
Speaker 1: the eighties. And so is that the right number for you?

960
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:56,440
Speaker 1: Maybe not every year. We're not doing this year, but

961
00:55:56,600 --> 00:55:59,680
Speaker 1: next year. Maybe always with Howard Jones, Oh no, no,

962
00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:02,160
Speaker 1: I haven't played with him sensory, although I do bump

963
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:04,440
Speaker 1: into him occasion at these eighties festivals that they have

964
00:56:04,560 --> 00:56:08,920
Speaker 1: in Europe, you know, which a great fun. But I

965
00:56:09,200 --> 00:56:12,760
Speaker 1: know most of this. This last year we've been touring

966
00:56:12,800 --> 00:56:16,239
Speaker 1: with Culture Club and the B fifty twos, which was

967
00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 1: a good package as well, you know, as a kind

968
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:24,040
Speaker 1: of party night, and everyone was behaving themselves pretty much

969
00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:28,719
Speaker 1: in your drug and alcohol free Oh yeah, okay. Now,

970
00:56:30,000 --> 00:56:31,919
Speaker 1: one might say to go on the road and play

971
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:37,320
Speaker 1: the old hits is nostalgia obviously pays? Well? Does it

972
00:56:37,800 --> 00:56:41,919
Speaker 1: bother you to be a jukebox of your old pulpit? Well,

973
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:45,640
Speaker 1: I think you've got to be completely pragmatic about this.

974
00:56:45,719 --> 00:56:48,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I play new songs as well, but if

975
00:56:48,080 --> 00:56:50,319
Speaker 1: that's all I did, people just wander off to the bar.

976
00:56:50,400 --> 00:56:53,560
Speaker 1: I mean I know that right, only the keenness of

977
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:55,800
Speaker 1: the fans. So when I'm playing to a big mixed audience,

978
00:56:55,840 --> 00:56:58,040
Speaker 1: some of whom have come to see other bands or

979
00:56:58,120 --> 00:57:00,839
Speaker 1: whatever in the festival. I've got to deliver my hits

980
00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:04,600
Speaker 1: otherwise they won't be satisfied. Luckily, I liked my hits

981
00:57:04,640 --> 00:57:09,600
Speaker 1: as well, so between them I can play old and new.

982
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:14,239
Speaker 1: And also, you know, nostalgia can be a dirty word

983
00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:17,200
Speaker 1: if that's all it is, but I think if it

984
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:19,560
Speaker 1: evokes a shared experience, and what I find is that

985
00:57:19,600 --> 00:57:23,880
Speaker 1: there's a big emotional contact made with certain songs, and

986
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:26,200
Speaker 1: that's a real privilege. I mean, that doesn't happen in

987
00:57:26,280 --> 00:57:29,160
Speaker 1: the course of normal life. To suddenly have the kind

988
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:32,240
Speaker 1: of welling up of an emotion about something that you

989
00:57:32,320 --> 00:57:36,400
Speaker 1: did thirty five years ago with these people, that's a

990
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:40,360
Speaker 1: kind of weird thing. It's very special and very precious

991
00:57:40,440 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 1: to me. Um and it gives me as also the

992
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:48,360
Speaker 1: excuse to to tour and to play new songs and

993
00:57:48,400 --> 00:57:52,560
Speaker 1: make new records. Okay, but most acts from the seventies

994
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:55,760
Speaker 1: and eighties, when they make new music, it doesn't gain

995
00:57:55,800 --> 00:57:59,440
Speaker 1: any big traction. Is that as a disincentive to make

996
00:57:59,520 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 1: new music, Well, yes it is. And of course the

997
00:58:02,240 --> 00:58:04,960
Speaker 1: background story to that is that people don't make money

998
00:58:05,000 --> 00:58:08,960
Speaker 1: out of records period. Now whereas they used to. So

999
00:58:10,320 --> 00:58:13,280
Speaker 1: it's all flipped now now, you know, the hardened business

1000
00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:15,880
Speaker 1: manager would say, well, you make a record to sell tickets,

1001
00:58:16,720 --> 00:58:19,040
Speaker 1: whereas on the old days you're toured to sell your record.

1002
00:58:19,760 --> 00:58:24,080
Speaker 1: Now that's changed everything in a way. But I mean,

1003
00:58:24,160 --> 00:58:25,920
Speaker 1: I think if you have it within you. I didn't

1004
00:58:26,000 --> 00:58:27,560
Speaker 1: know that I was going to be making a new

1005
00:58:27,640 --> 00:58:30,600
Speaker 1: album year and the year before, but I ended up

1006
00:58:30,640 --> 00:58:33,000
Speaker 1: doing it because I'm back in that saddle. You know.

1007
00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:35,760
Speaker 1: It's like it seems like the normal and natural thing

1008
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:39,919
Speaker 1: to do, and I just love pop music. There's something

1009
00:58:40,240 --> 00:58:44,440
Speaker 1: incredibly special, given that I've been doing all these other

1010
00:58:44,520 --> 00:58:47,240
Speaker 1: kinds of music. There's something very special about the economy

1011
00:58:47,280 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 1: and directness of pop music that for me is like

1012
00:58:50,880 --> 00:58:55,560
Speaker 1: solving a crossword puzzle or something. You know that there's, um,

1013
00:58:57,440 --> 00:59:00,160
Speaker 1: there's an angle to it that really satisfies my brain some.

1014
00:59:01,760 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 1: But you can't climb the mountaintop every time. No no, no,

1015
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:09,080
Speaker 1: no no, and nor should you want to. I mean,

1016
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:11,800
Speaker 1: that's like I said, that's the game for the teenager too,

1017
00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:15,200
Speaker 1: to lure them into this in the first place. This

1018
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:21,720
Speaker 1: the dream of being adored and famous and having won songs.

1019
00:59:22,400 --> 00:59:26,960
Speaker 1: Do well, Okay, but you think you could still write

1020
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:30,400
Speaker 1: a part here that would be known by most of

1021
00:59:30,440 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 1: the public. Yes. Yes, although, of course, as we touched

1022
00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:41,400
Speaker 1: on earlier, the nature of pop music has changed. So

1023
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:43,360
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can write in that particular way,

1024
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:46,200
Speaker 1: but I seem to be able to write in a

1025
00:59:46,320 --> 00:59:50,080
Speaker 1: way that the eighties audience likes, at least because it

1026
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:54,320
Speaker 1: reminds them. I suppose of the kind of formal organization

1027
00:59:54,480 --> 00:59:58,040
Speaker 1: and of of a three and a half minute pop

1028
00:59:58,080 --> 01:00:00,760
Speaker 1: song that we used to write back then. We'll staying

1029
01:00:00,800 --> 01:00:06,360
Speaker 1: down this top because rock did well. The brutal answer

1030
01:00:06,480 --> 01:00:11,160
Speaker 1: is yes, and it's really unfortunate. But it may be

1031
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:16,280
Speaker 1: because the Internet has taken over from you know it.

1032
01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:22,520
Speaker 1: Put it this way, rock and roll was once an uncontained, uncontrollable,

1033
01:00:23,760 --> 01:00:29,720
Speaker 1: urgent energy that disurged its way through our culture and

1034
01:00:29,800 --> 01:00:35,160
Speaker 1: through our society. Slowly, but slowly, it was captured, controlled

1035
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:42,120
Speaker 1: by corporate interests, and so it can't claim to be

1036
01:00:42,280 --> 01:00:46,560
Speaker 1: the very thing that defined its necessity in the first place,

1037
01:00:46,560 --> 01:00:50,040
Speaker 1: which was to be rebellious. Now it's just people dressing

1038
01:00:50,160 --> 01:00:58,960
Speaker 1: up and looking rebellious. Now things have changed, and not

1039
01:00:59,120 --> 01:01:01,720
Speaker 1: only in that respect, I think in black music, especially

1040
01:01:02,200 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 1: in R and B and hip hop. Di's still a

1041
01:01:05,200 --> 01:01:09,840
Speaker 1: rebellious nous. There's still a vitality which hasn't quite been captured,

1042
01:01:10,400 --> 01:01:16,880
Speaker 1: although I think it's teetering really closely. Um. But in

1043
01:01:17,080 --> 01:01:21,600
Speaker 1: terms of straight ahead pop music, it's kind of sad

1044
01:01:21,680 --> 01:01:27,360
Speaker 1: to see it go for the uncontained, dangerous elements of

1045
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:29,480
Speaker 1: our culture all living in the internet now and not

1046
01:01:29,760 --> 01:01:32,080
Speaker 1: in the grooves of records. That's just the sad fact.

1047
01:01:33,480 --> 01:01:37,919
Speaker 1: So what's the whole from music? Well, I remember music

1048
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:40,440
Speaker 1: was there before rock and roll, and it will be

1049
01:01:41,480 --> 01:01:44,040
Speaker 1: here a long time after it, because it's a fundamental,

1050
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:50,360
Speaker 1: primal urge of us to make sound and communicate and

1051
01:01:50,520 --> 01:01:54,560
Speaker 1: enjoy it. And nearer I live in France, there's a

1052
01:01:54,680 --> 01:02:00,360
Speaker 1: cave where twenty thousand plus years ago pe All went

1053
01:02:00,440 --> 01:02:04,040
Speaker 1: in to paint pictures of large animals. So that's the

1054
01:02:04,080 --> 01:02:07,400
Speaker 1: one that where the German director made a movie about

1055
01:02:07,640 --> 01:02:11,120
Speaker 1: no that was chove, which you can't go into because

1056
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:14,440
Speaker 1: they're very frightened that the you know, the humidity of

1057
01:02:15,160 --> 01:02:18,000
Speaker 1: the and the michael organisms in our breath will destroy it,

1058
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:20,520
Speaker 1: which they would. So now this place you can go

1059
01:02:20,640 --> 01:02:24,480
Speaker 1: into because it's they discovered graffiti from the seventeenth century,

1060
01:02:24,520 --> 01:02:26,520
Speaker 1: so they realized people have been going there a lot,

1061
01:02:26,640 --> 01:02:30,360
Speaker 1: you know, So it's very carefully controlled. They have carbon

1062
01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:33,640
Speaker 1: monoxide and dioxide sensors. As soon as the temperature rises

1063
01:02:33,680 --> 01:02:36,960
Speaker 1: by three degrees, you're out all this kind of stuff.

1064
01:02:37,400 --> 01:02:42,880
Speaker 1: But I go back repeatedly because half a mile into

1065
01:02:42,960 --> 01:02:46,240
Speaker 1: this mountain there's a place where there's lots of amazing

1066
01:02:46,360 --> 01:02:51,840
Speaker 1: pictures of buffalo by some ibecks, horses and so and

1067
01:02:51,920 --> 01:02:55,080
Speaker 1: so forth. Why did they go so far to paint

1068
01:02:55,120 --> 01:02:59,360
Speaker 1: their pictures. It's because that's where the reverberation is at

1069
01:02:59,400 --> 01:03:05,560
Speaker 1: its most glorious. They went there to sing. It's been

1070
01:03:05,600 --> 01:03:07,440
Speaker 1: going on that long, you know. And that's not even

1071
01:03:07,520 --> 01:03:11,680
Speaker 1: an old cave. There are their their cave art examples

1072
01:03:11,680 --> 01:03:15,720
Speaker 1: going about forty and even sixty thousand years now, and

1073
01:03:17,640 --> 01:03:20,320
Speaker 1: it's highly likely that they were getting high and singing

1074
01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:27,000
Speaker 1: before they painted. Now, being an Englishman, what do you

1075
01:03:27,040 --> 01:03:31,080
Speaker 1: think about politics relative to music and the sixties? Certainly

1076
01:03:31,240 --> 01:03:34,800
Speaker 1: music drove the culture and now there's certainly a lot

1077
01:03:34,840 --> 01:03:37,200
Speaker 1: of stuff to sing about. How come we don't have

1078
01:03:37,520 --> 01:03:45,440
Speaker 1: that same the same type of music with the same impact. Well,

1079
01:03:45,520 --> 01:03:48,880
Speaker 1: that's probably because I mean, I think there are people

1080
01:03:48,960 --> 01:03:53,320
Speaker 1: writing interesting and pointed and songs of commentary and criticism,

1081
01:03:54,160 --> 01:03:55,800
Speaker 1: but they don't end up being in the charts in

1082
01:03:55,840 --> 01:03:57,640
Speaker 1: the way I mean. That was the amazing thing about

1083
01:03:57,680 --> 01:03:59,680
Speaker 1: the golden age of rock and roll was the bands

1084
01:03:59,760 --> 01:04:04,480
Speaker 1: that were our gods were also our cultural critics, and

1085
01:04:05,080 --> 01:04:08,920
Speaker 1: we sought out a rebellion through exactly what they did.

1086
01:04:09,440 --> 01:04:15,120
Speaker 1: And now people are playing it safe. There's also less

1087
01:04:15,360 --> 01:04:20,280
Speaker 1: of a culture of criticism. We don't know what's true

1088
01:04:20,280 --> 01:04:22,440
Speaker 1: anymore for a start, anyway, so it's difficult to put

1089
01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:26,560
Speaker 1: your finger on what it is that we want to say. Um,

1090
01:04:27,280 --> 01:04:32,080
Speaker 1: and so maybe maybe that's got something to do with it.

1091
01:04:34,240 --> 01:04:37,560
Speaker 1: But you're you're you're living in France, which is a

1092
01:04:37,680 --> 01:04:41,600
Speaker 1: nation of some level of turmoil, and certainly UK with

1093
01:04:41,720 --> 01:04:47,080
Speaker 1: Brexit they have some turmoil. What's that experience like? It's troubling,

1094
01:04:48,040 --> 01:04:49,800
Speaker 1: and of course we're all living on a planet which

1095
01:04:49,880 --> 01:04:55,800
Speaker 1: is presently doomed, so you know, choose your level of turmoil.

1096
01:04:56,680 --> 01:05:00,960
Speaker 1: It's a it's a worrying time. But I don't see

1097
01:05:01,640 --> 01:05:05,960
Speaker 1: the voice or hear the voices of both criticism and

1098
01:05:06,040 --> 01:05:09,240
Speaker 1: a call to arms from the world of music anymore

1099
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:11,200
Speaker 1: like I used to. I'll read them on the internet,

1100
01:05:11,240 --> 01:05:15,760
Speaker 1: but I won't hear them in the songs. And so

1101
01:05:15,880 --> 01:05:18,240
Speaker 1: what is it like personally the arc of your life.

1102
01:05:18,280 --> 01:05:22,080
Speaker 1: You have this great success thirty odd years ago and

1103
01:05:22,200 --> 01:05:27,120
Speaker 1: now it's thirty years later. Does it Does it depress

1104
01:05:27,200 --> 01:05:29,480
Speaker 1: you that you have this great success then and now

1105
01:05:30,120 --> 01:05:36,200
Speaker 1: you're not as well known? No? No, no, um. I

1106
01:05:36,280 --> 01:05:38,880
Speaker 1: don't think that being well known was ever really something

1107
01:05:38,920 --> 01:05:41,440
Speaker 1: that I particularly bothered about. Was just a side effect.

1108
01:05:41,520 --> 01:05:44,960
Speaker 1: You know, you do end up kind of measuring your

1109
01:05:45,120 --> 01:05:48,720
Speaker 1: stats on by some of those metrics I guess, you know,

1110
01:05:48,840 --> 01:05:52,200
Speaker 1: chart positions and stuff. It's just an inherent in pop music.

1111
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:55,720
Speaker 1: But that was never really what got me out of

1112
01:05:55,760 --> 01:05:58,640
Speaker 1: bed every morning. It was more about making music. What

1113
01:05:58,800 --> 01:06:03,680
Speaker 1: gets you out of bed today. Music. So if you're

1114
01:06:03,720 --> 01:06:06,640
Speaker 1: making music and it's only for a tiny audience, you

1115
01:06:06,760 --> 01:06:09,120
Speaker 1: feel like you're pushing the envelope. Everything is okay, Yes

1116
01:06:09,160 --> 01:06:10,800
Speaker 1: I have something to do. If there's an idea or

1117
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:12,160
Speaker 1: thought of last night, and I'll wake up thing and

1118
01:06:12,240 --> 01:06:13,880
Speaker 1: right I'm going to do that today, then that keeps

1119
01:06:13,960 --> 01:06:16,040
Speaker 1: me going. And I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity,

1120
01:06:16,400 --> 01:06:19,440
Speaker 1: which I think to some extent I probably earned. But

1121
01:06:19,560 --> 01:06:22,800
Speaker 1: it just turned out that way, you know, So what

1122
01:06:22,960 --> 01:06:26,840
Speaker 1: can I say? It's a it's an odd situation to

1123
01:06:26,920 --> 01:06:32,600
Speaker 1: be describing. But I know people whose careers didn't wane

1124
01:06:32,640 --> 01:06:35,120
Speaker 1: in the same way as mine, and others who's have

1125
01:06:35,400 --> 01:06:39,439
Speaker 1: disappeared and tiny without any trace, you know. So I'm

1126
01:06:39,560 --> 01:06:42,880
Speaker 1: just lucky to be doing what I'm doing. Okay, I

1127
01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:46,320
Speaker 1: don't hear any negative negativity. Are you just that up

1128
01:06:46,400 --> 01:06:51,440
Speaker 1: a person? Are we just not hearing you know? I

1129
01:06:51,520 --> 01:06:53,760
Speaker 1: think we're all the position of choosing whether we want

1130
01:06:53,800 --> 01:06:58,720
Speaker 1: to complain about our lives or actually get on with

1131
01:06:59,120 --> 01:07:03,080
Speaker 1: the good things. Don't you think it is to some

1132
01:07:03,280 --> 01:07:07,520
Speaker 1: extent or choice. All there is is what happens and

1133
01:07:07,600 --> 01:07:10,320
Speaker 1: then how we feel about it. So we can't change

1134
01:07:10,360 --> 01:07:12,240
Speaker 1: what happens, but we can change what we feel about it.

1135
01:07:12,560 --> 01:07:15,520
Speaker 1: But also we can decide to what degree we want

1136
01:07:15,560 --> 01:07:19,280
Speaker 1: to engage. Well, all of us should engage a hundred

1137
01:07:19,320 --> 01:07:26,000
Speaker 1: percent with everything. There's no debate about that in my mind. Well, today,

1138
01:07:26,080 --> 01:07:27,440
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people sit at home and

1139
01:07:27,480 --> 01:07:30,120
Speaker 1: they engage with Netflix, which is not the same thing.

1140
01:07:30,360 --> 01:07:32,520
Speaker 1: We had to go to clubs, We had to get

1141
01:07:32,560 --> 01:07:34,760
Speaker 1: out of the house. I think it was also part

1142
01:07:34,800 --> 01:07:38,360
Speaker 1: of the whole excitement. I'm a terrible example of someone

1143
01:07:38,400 --> 01:07:41,000
Speaker 1: who I don't really engage with culture directly like that.

1144
01:07:41,080 --> 01:07:43,960
Speaker 1: I don't have a TV set, I don't have Netflix account.

1145
01:07:45,400 --> 01:07:47,200
Speaker 1: I guess I have on mobile phone. And that's about

1146
01:07:47,280 --> 01:07:49,920
Speaker 1: us far us I make. I make music with computers,

1147
01:07:50,000 --> 01:07:52,720
Speaker 1: you know, which is a kind of strange admission. But

1148
01:07:53,720 --> 01:07:57,600
Speaker 1: other than that, I just wonder crashing into one lamp

1149
01:07:57,640 --> 01:08:00,080
Speaker 1: post after another. So when you're not making music, what

1150
01:08:00,160 --> 01:08:05,200
Speaker 1: are you doing? That doesn't leave much time? Actually? Okay,

1151
01:08:05,280 --> 01:08:07,760
Speaker 1: so you're still as driven as you once were. Yes,

1152
01:08:08,000 --> 01:08:11,400
Speaker 1: and that's been consistent for the last forty years. And

1153
01:08:11,560 --> 01:08:13,680
Speaker 1: I think part of it is having several projects. So

1154
01:08:13,760 --> 01:08:15,840
Speaker 1: when I finished with pop music, I go to International

1155
01:08:15,920 --> 01:08:19,080
Speaker 1: Observer my dub thing, or meet with the Indian musicians

1156
01:08:19,160 --> 01:08:23,680
Speaker 1: and write with them or whatever. So other than that,

1157
01:08:23,760 --> 01:08:25,559
Speaker 1: when I go back to France, I have a garden,

1158
01:08:25,640 --> 01:08:26,920
Speaker 1: you know, I sit in the garden. I think this

1159
01:08:27,040 --> 01:08:29,840
Speaker 1: is great for a few weeks, and then then I

1160
01:08:29,920 --> 01:08:32,320
Speaker 1: get edgy face. I want to go touring again. Okay,

1161
01:08:33,200 --> 01:08:36,240
Speaker 1: you now, I mean your manager should sent me a

1162
01:08:36,360 --> 01:08:40,719
Speaker 1: video where you are performing with three women, everybody wearing white.

1163
01:08:40,760 --> 01:08:46,640
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, how long has that been? The paradigm, the

1164
01:08:46,720 --> 01:08:51,880
Speaker 1: Women or the White. When I decided I was gonna

1165
01:08:53,080 --> 01:08:56,280
Speaker 1: get back into touring the pop music again, I got

1166
01:08:56,360 --> 01:08:59,240
Speaker 1: in touch with my old drummer, Jeff Dougma, and he said, yes, sure,

1167
01:08:59,240 --> 01:09:02,400
Speaker 1: I'd love to do that up. And then he's incredibly

1168
01:09:02,479 --> 01:09:04,639
Speaker 1: big in some kind of heavy metal band in Japan

1169
01:09:04,840 --> 01:09:07,240
Speaker 1: or something and had a stadium gig coming up, and

1170
01:09:07,320 --> 01:09:09,040
Speaker 1: so he had to drop out of my tour and

1171
01:09:09,360 --> 01:09:12,240
Speaker 1: he said, but never mind, I've got this this person

1172
01:09:12,280 --> 01:09:14,000
Speaker 1: in mind for you, And it turned out to be

1173
01:09:14,800 --> 01:09:19,600
Speaker 1: Emily Dolan Davis, a female drummer um and then a

1174
01:09:19,720 --> 01:09:24,880
Speaker 1: keyboard player, Amanda Kramer from from the Psychedelic First she

1175
01:09:25,000 --> 01:09:26,800
Speaker 1: came along and wanted to work with me, and then

1176
01:09:27,439 --> 01:09:30,360
Speaker 1: another and we thought, this is turning into an all

1177
01:09:30,439 --> 01:09:34,000
Speaker 1: female band. Why fight it? And then I discovered, hey,

1178
01:09:34,120 --> 01:09:39,200
Speaker 1: it's actually something really nice about the group dynamics of

1179
01:09:39,320 --> 01:09:43,040
Speaker 1: women working together as opposed to the kind of tired,

1180
01:09:43,080 --> 01:09:46,840
Speaker 1: old male rock and roll cliches that happened on the bus,

1181
01:09:46,960 --> 01:09:50,720
Speaker 1: you know, two weeks into any tour. So I've just

1182
01:09:50,840 --> 01:09:56,880
Speaker 1: developed an affection for working with women. And also for

1183
01:09:56,960 --> 01:09:59,800
Speaker 1: the first two years we wore black and then one

1184
01:10:00,040 --> 01:10:03,640
Speaker 1: a I thought, if we have to go on in

1185
01:10:03,720 --> 01:10:07,360
Speaker 1: the afternoon or look at some festival or there's no

1186
01:10:07,479 --> 01:10:09,559
Speaker 1: follow spot or something, people at the back of why

1187
01:10:09,560 --> 01:10:13,000
Speaker 1: don't we wear white and they'll see us? And it works.

1188
01:10:13,880 --> 01:10:18,320
Speaker 1: Certainly we're white at night too. Yes, okay. There was

1189
01:10:18,360 --> 01:10:20,439
Speaker 1: a video of this video that You're me and Andrew said,

1190
01:10:20,920 --> 01:10:23,720
Speaker 1: and everybody is singing along to the song will me now?

1191
01:10:23,840 --> 01:10:26,439
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. But also it seemed like

1192
01:10:26,520 --> 01:10:31,920
Speaker 1: some of the audience was young. Well, they either another

1193
01:10:32,000 --> 01:10:35,120
Speaker 1: song from radio or their parents have forced it upon them,

1194
01:10:36,040 --> 01:10:38,479
Speaker 1: they've heard it at home. I don't know what what

1195
01:10:38,680 --> 01:10:42,880
Speaker 1: is this, because otherwise you'd have to seek out that.

1196
01:10:43,120 --> 01:10:46,000
Speaker 1: But isn't that true of the younger generation these days,

1197
01:10:46,080 --> 01:10:50,120
Speaker 1: is that their taste chronologically is wide and incredibly. I mean,

1198
01:10:50,200 --> 01:10:53,720
Speaker 1: my kids listened to the latest pop music and like

1199
01:10:53,840 --> 01:10:57,559
Speaker 1: early blues recordings side by side and everything in between.

1200
01:10:58,439 --> 01:11:01,240
Speaker 1: And I think that's the one brilliant thing about the

1201
01:11:01,280 --> 01:11:05,200
Speaker 1: Internet and music is that it's put at their disposal,

1202
01:11:05,280 --> 01:11:07,320
Speaker 1: at the touch of the button, every single piece of

1203
01:11:07,400 --> 01:11:11,880
Speaker 1: recorded music. And that's incredible thing, so much that you

1204
01:11:11,960 --> 01:11:15,160
Speaker 1: can't possibly listen to it all before you die, which

1205
01:11:15,240 --> 01:11:18,760
Speaker 1: we never had, and we would, you know, spend a

1206
01:11:18,840 --> 01:11:21,840
Speaker 1: long time traveling to dingy records stores and going through

1207
01:11:21,880 --> 01:11:24,519
Speaker 1: crates in order to maybe find the thing we were

1208
01:11:24,520 --> 01:11:27,599
Speaker 1: looking for and often failing. So now it's so easy,

1209
01:11:27,720 --> 01:11:33,479
Speaker 1: you know. Um, So maybe maybe that's the way they

1210
01:11:33,520 --> 01:11:35,800
Speaker 1: find it. I don't know, or do they hearken back

1211
01:11:35,960 --> 01:11:38,840
Speaker 1: because they can feel that excitement that they don't get

1212
01:11:38,880 --> 01:11:41,120
Speaker 1: in today's pop music. Oh, I don't know if it's

1213
01:11:41,160 --> 01:11:45,040
Speaker 1: competing with today's pop music in that sense directly. Some

1214
01:11:45,120 --> 01:11:47,160
Speaker 1: people just go to festivals because they like music and

1215
01:11:47,560 --> 01:11:51,200
Speaker 1: they listen to anything. Um. I hope it's because they've

1216
01:11:51,200 --> 01:11:53,080
Speaker 1: in some way heard it and think it's nice and

1217
01:11:53,320 --> 01:11:55,400
Speaker 1: I want to hear more. So what's the charge? I mean,

1218
01:11:55,439 --> 01:11:57,600
Speaker 1: there must be an amazing charge being on stage and

1219
01:11:57,720 --> 01:12:04,320
Speaker 1: experiencing that. Yeah, you have no idea, man, it's it's

1220
01:12:04,360 --> 01:12:07,240
Speaker 1: the one thing that I'm addicted to, really, is that

1221
01:12:07,360 --> 01:12:11,559
Speaker 1: emotional contact when when the crowd starts singing your song

1222
01:12:11,800 --> 01:12:14,760
Speaker 1: and you realize, you know what my job has done.

1223
01:12:16,520 --> 01:12:20,639
Speaker 1: It's over to you guys. Um. It makes me deeply

1224
01:12:20,720 --> 01:12:23,759
Speaker 1: happy and it kind of reverberates back through the ages.

1225
01:12:23,800 --> 01:12:25,880
Speaker 1: As I said, there's a contact with something that we

1226
01:12:25,960 --> 01:12:28,600
Speaker 1: did a long time ago, and that kind of nostalgia

1227
01:12:28,640 --> 01:12:31,720
Speaker 1: for me, it's not the kind of vacuous living in

1228
01:12:31,760 --> 01:12:34,760
Speaker 1: the past nostalgia, but there's something very present. And it

1229
01:12:34,880 --> 01:12:39,240
Speaker 1: also gives me the feeling that the optimism which we

1230
01:12:39,360 --> 01:12:43,360
Speaker 1: still felt in the eighties about the world in general

1231
01:12:44,040 --> 01:12:48,240
Speaker 1: hasn't died totally. And it's been through some hard times,

1232
01:12:48,479 --> 01:12:50,640
Speaker 1: but it hasn't died totally. Well, if you say you

1233
01:12:50,760 --> 01:12:53,320
Speaker 1: live for that hit on stage, how do you feel

1234
01:12:53,320 --> 01:12:59,280
Speaker 1: about the thirty years you weren't on stage? Believe in me,

1235
01:12:59,360 --> 01:13:02,160
Speaker 1: I was totally happy not to be doing it. I

1236
01:13:02,400 --> 01:13:06,360
Speaker 1: was doing other things and looking elsewhere. But I must

1237
01:13:06,439 --> 01:13:09,439
Speaker 1: also admit that sometimes I think, why did I wait?

1238
01:13:09,479 --> 01:13:13,320
Speaker 1: So I could have been having fun all this time,

1239
01:13:13,400 --> 01:13:15,160
Speaker 1: you know, with this particular thing. But it wasn't that

1240
01:13:15,200 --> 01:13:17,439
Speaker 1: I wasn't enjoying what I was doing. So it's in

1241
01:13:17,520 --> 01:13:19,040
Speaker 1: a way it's a kind of an old question. Well,

1242
01:13:20,080 --> 01:13:22,080
Speaker 1: I can wriggle out of that one in my own mind.

1243
01:13:23,280 --> 01:13:26,360
Speaker 1: On that note, we've been talking to Tom Bailey of

1244
01:13:26,520 --> 01:13:30,719
Speaker 1: the Toms and Twins, touring multiple dates around the world now, Tom,

1245
01:13:30,840 --> 01:13:32,800
Speaker 1: thanks so much for me on the podcast. It's an

1246
01:13:32,800 --> 01:13:33,639
Speaker 1: absolute pleasure.