Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left That's podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited today because my guest is the cultural force,
Speaker 1: the innovator in the Thompson Twins. Tom Bailey, Hello, good okay.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing you with the Greek and the rumor
Speaker 1: was that someone had cut off your ponytail and you
Speaker 1: were wearing a fake ponytail. What's the real story there?
Speaker 1: It was self inflicted actually, because there were a few
Speaker 1: attempts to capture my ponytail as a kind of trophy
Speaker 1: or something, you know. And I actually did get to
Speaker 1: the stage where someone was creeping up behind me with
Speaker 1: a pair of scissors, and I thought, you know, this
Speaker 1: could end up in a sad way, so I cut
Speaker 1: it off myself. And then everyone said you can't do that.
Speaker 1: And I think for a while I had a fake one,
Speaker 1: but it didn't last long. I what a question to
Speaker 1: start with, buff right? You know, as I say that,
Speaker 1: that was back, you know, before the Internet, when you
Speaker 1: fought for every tidbit from the rock press and we
Speaker 1: uh strayed to the important issue exactly. So you're in
Speaker 1: l A. Now, what are you up to these days? Well,
Speaker 1: I just spent the Southern Hemisphere summer in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: which is what I do every year, and I'm heading
Speaker 1: back to Europe, so this trip brings me halfway home.
Speaker 1: And okay, so how many gigs did you do uh
Speaker 1: in New Zealand, Australia, etcetera. None. I did one private
Speaker 1: gate for a friend, just to help them out. And okay,
Speaker 1: well let's go back. You live there, now, that's one
Speaker 1: of your houses. Yeah? Yeah, Well what I do is
Speaker 1: I live in France, Okay, in the mountains, in the mountains,
Speaker 1: like the Alps, the Pyrenees. Oh really, down by Spain,
Speaker 1: that's right. Are you a skier? No, I'm not, because
Speaker 1: we're diverting from the story here. But I broke both
Speaker 1: my thumbs on a ski slope once and I couldn't
Speaker 1: play the piano for six months, and that kind put
Speaker 1: me off. Whenever I've tried subsequently, I just think I'm
Speaker 1: not enjoying this. How long ago did you break your thumbs?
Speaker 1: Twenty years? Okay? So you basically live in France, okay,
Speaker 1: in the mountains, but it gets so cold and like
Speaker 1: it goes to minus twenty five in the winter, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is an old stone house it's not a place
Speaker 1: to be when it gets to minus study five, right,
Speaker 1: And we also have a place in New Zealand, so
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense to go and catch
Speaker 1: the southern summer then, and which I landed New Zealand
Speaker 1: and the North Island in Auckland City, right, Okay, So
Speaker 1: where are you from? Originally in the north of England.
Speaker 1: I was born in Hannif. I was kind of brought
Speaker 1: up in South Yorkshire, North Derbyshire. Okay. Now, if you
Speaker 1: live in England, we're familiar with all those things. For
Speaker 1: the English listeners. For an American listener, where he is, okay,
Speaker 1: conjure up a kind of bleak, northern, grim industrial landscape
Speaker 1: with me standing in the middle of it. And what
Speaker 1: did your parents do for a living? Um? That all
Speaker 1: my family medical? My fat it was a public health epidemiologist.
Speaker 1: My mother was the nursing matron of a hospital. My
Speaker 1: younger sister is a sexual health doctor. My elder sister
Speaker 1: after care bone specialist. So what happened to you? But
Speaker 1: if there's anything wrong with you, come to me first. Okay.
Speaker 1: So you're in the middle child, I am, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So you grow up? Is there music in the house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very much, especially from my father, you know, who was
Speaker 1: a kind of keen amateur organist, actually a kind of
Speaker 1: church organ and choir guy. Um. He wasn't particularly religious.
Speaker 1: I think he grew up in a kind of small
Speaker 1: northern industrial community where you had to go to church
Speaker 1: otherwise you weren't part of the community. Um, and he
Speaker 1: chose to get involved in that side of things rather
Speaker 1: than the religious side, which seems like a smart move
Speaker 1: to me, I think. And I did a similar thing,
Speaker 1: you know. I went to church and I was in
Speaker 1: the choir and learning about all of that stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're similar ages, and there was certainly no in the
Speaker 1: in America. What you did. We had a transistor radio.
Speaker 1: You put it under your pillow and you listen to
Speaker 1: the baseball game, okay, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: the Beatles hit. Okay. What was it like living in
Speaker 1: the UK because we're of similar ages. Well, we didn't
Speaker 1: have baseball, that's for sure, but we did have offshore
Speaker 1: pirate radio stations like Luxembourg and things like that, which
Speaker 1: became the thing to listen to under your pillow, and
Speaker 1: it was an incredibly exciting moment. Um. I can remember
Speaker 1: hearing bands like the Beatles for the first time in
Speaker 1: that very way, and it changed everyone's lives, right, It
Speaker 1: certainly changed our lives. I mean, we're here in America,
Speaker 1: we're still running another fumes of the Beatles. So you
Speaker 1: listen to the Beatles, you're like seven years old. Does
Speaker 1: that incite you to play or want to make music? No?
Speaker 1: Infact I was a little bit of a stick in
Speaker 1: them because I had a classical music training, right, so
Speaker 1: it was a little bit of an unbearable snob at
Speaker 1: seven years old and refusing to to really enjoy what
Speaker 1: was happening with the Beatles. I got into the Middles
Speaker 1: a little late. So after the after the kind of
Speaker 1: public song era, I was into the psychedelic era. Really, Now,
Speaker 1: were you into any other bands at that time? The
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones where there's a plethora of British as we
Speaker 1: call British invasion acts, so many things, I mean, the
Speaker 1: Beatles first, to be honest, down the Stones, and then
Speaker 1: into all of the kind of counterculture bands of the
Speaker 1: time when rock and roll meant something to do with
Speaker 1: changing the world. Right. Oh, you know, I remember those days.
Speaker 1: You know, people will always say, now, oh, you're too
Speaker 1: old you don't get it, they said, no, we live
Speaker 1: through something like you live through. The internet really changed everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course. And it's the funny thing to to note that.
Speaker 1: I think one way of saying is that the kind
Speaker 1: of search lamp of culture, the searchlight falls on different
Speaker 1: things at different times. I remember, for example, for UPL
Speaker 1: in the eighties, suddenly, to be in a dance club
Speaker 1: it was like the hippest thing in the world, not
Speaker 1: as if they hadn't existed before, but there was something
Speaker 1: going on where things changed, and it was to do
Speaker 1: with the kind of music was being played, the kind
Speaker 1: of behavior that was suddenly allowed, and the display of
Speaker 1: sexuality that was allowed suddenly. So wow. For a few years,
Speaker 1: dance clubs were the critical marketplace for ideas, and then
Speaker 1: suddenly it wasn't. How when you say that, are you
Speaker 1: talking about like the Menchester sound and that stuff before that?
Speaker 1: Even before that, Yeah, I think suddenly I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: going to clubs in London and bumping into people that
Speaker 1: subsequently became world famous, like George and they was hanging
Speaker 1: around in clubs and well, okay, so but let's go
Speaker 1: back to the North. So you're there and are you
Speaker 1: like a good student. I'm the laziest students in the world.
Speaker 1: I think. I think it was fascinated by music and
Speaker 1: not else. But I had a kind of bleak northern
Speaker 1: classical education, and um, some of it rubbed off, I guess.
Speaker 1: So you're still a snob today. Now you know the
Speaker 1: terms are flipped between the UK and the US. Did
Speaker 1: you go to a public school, private school or did
Speaker 1: you go to a public school? Well? I went to
Speaker 1: what you call a public school, and we call a
Speaker 1: private school the government school. Yeah, okay, a grammar school
Speaker 1: we call them. Okay. And how long did you go for? Well?
Speaker 1: I did the whole high school thing. Then what about college?
Speaker 1: And then I went to college and studied music and
Speaker 1: fine arts. Okay, so you graduated from college. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: This is something you wanted to do or you were
Speaker 1: doing for your parents. I think it was a bit
Speaker 1: of both. I mean, I think they wanted me to
Speaker 1: probably to go and study medicine or something much more academic,
Speaker 1: and I kind of chiseled away until I got an
Speaker 1: offer to do music and art, which is with my loves. So, um,
Speaker 1: I went to college to please them, but chose the
Speaker 1: wrong subjects. Okay, well that you know, that's rare. We
Speaker 1: always hear about people dropping out the UK and becoming musicians.
Speaker 1: So you go to college, you finished college, then what's
Speaker 1: the next step. I go to India to study yoga
Speaker 1: and meditation. Okay, well you know, putting out my father's had.
Speaker 1: First thing would say is an American? Well how did
Speaker 1: you pay for that? Um? I guess I worked, you know,
Speaker 1: like holiday jobs and saved money until I had enough
Speaker 1: to go and I couldn't afford to fly. I went overland.
Speaker 1: It took me seven weeks to get from London to
Speaker 1: New Delhi. Okay, like the New Delhi free trainers. Little
Speaker 1: feet would say, how do you how do you actually
Speaker 1: get from London to Delhi? Go to Thrust from Amsterdam?
Speaker 1: And like I said, it took seven weeks and it
Speaker 1: took me through all sorts of near death experiences. Wait
Speaker 1: a second, So you get the Amsterdam by train by
Speaker 1: boat in trosen train now and then you're on a
Speaker 1: bus for like six or seven weeks. What happens at night?
Speaker 1: You sleep on the bus and is it the same
Speaker 1: bus or you keep changing the same bus? And did
Speaker 1: you go alone? No? With you know, thirty five hippies.
Speaker 1: But but with all thirty five hippies were going from
Speaker 1: me Amsterdam. But in terms of leaving the UK, did
Speaker 1: you leave with thirty five people? No? No, No, half
Speaker 1: a dozen people that I knew. And one friend in
Speaker 1: particular who was a subsequent member of the Thompson to
Speaker 1: was John Rugue. But we're both guitarists. We took our
Speaker 1: guitars with us and we kind of paid our way
Speaker 1: by playing basically, Okay, but you're on a bus for
Speaker 1: six weeks, seven weeks? Yeah, Well, it did stop occasionally,
Speaker 1: and he would stop occasionally, like for a day or
Speaker 1: like a pit stop something like that. And so we
Speaker 1: got to Afghanistan actually, and then um, I did spend
Speaker 1: some time they're waiting for another bus to to take over,
Speaker 1: which is a long, long story other people have asked
Speaker 1: me about and I think I'll save that for writing
Speaker 1: the books sometimes. Well, did sub think bad happen there? Yeah? Yeah, yeah?
Speaker 1: And did you feel your life was threatened? Um? Oh,
Speaker 1: very very definitely. Yeah, but you survived somehow and the
Speaker 1: guitar was my constant companion. And okay, and how well
Speaker 1: did you play before you get out of the bus um. God,
Speaker 1: that's not for me to say, but I probably did
Speaker 1: improve by having to play for my life on a
Speaker 1: couple of occasions. And so then when it took seven
Speaker 1: weeks to get there, then you were in India for
Speaker 1: how long? Six months? Six months? Going where I went
Speaker 1: to Rishikesh to see where the Beatles had been in
Speaker 1: the astram with the Maharsh Maharishi mai Um in a
Speaker 1: place called shank and there was a sign that said
Speaker 1: fabulous beetles were here, and I knew I had landed.
Speaker 1: But of course though those that era had passed, but
Speaker 1: we were you know, we were kids wanted to learn
Speaker 1: meditation and strong guitars and hang out and eat vegetarian
Speaker 1: food and it was fabulous. Well well, but then you
Speaker 1: traveled around India a little bit. Yes, I went down
Speaker 1: south and then back up to the north. But it
Speaker 1: actually started a love affair with Indian music that that
Speaker 1: persisted to this day, you know. So I got to
Speaker 1: India regularly and work with musicians and that's part of
Speaker 1: my kind of labor of love that well, the first
Speaker 1: time I went to India was just last summer. It's
Speaker 1: just a fascinating place, isn't it. I mean, you're afraid
Speaker 1: of getting sick, but it's where I was. Griffin was
Speaker 1: won by you felt relatively safe. Yeah, but I mean
Speaker 1: everyone gets a bit sick sometimes, you know, you wear
Speaker 1: it with pride, I think, okay. So then it takes
Speaker 1: seven weeks to get back from India. No, somehow, I
Speaker 1: think there was a bit of scrabbling around for loose
Speaker 1: cash and we managed to get cheap plane tickets. I
Speaker 1: actually got very ill and there was a point where
Speaker 1: I thought, you know what, I'm not getting better. Maybe
Speaker 1: I should go back and faced My father, of course,
Speaker 1: was the doctor, had a lot of stern words about
Speaker 1: what we've been up to all the rest of it. Okay,
Speaker 1: but then you obviously got better. Yeah, And what was
Speaker 1: the next step? Um? I think I went to live
Speaker 1: down in the southwest of England and was into kind
Speaker 1: of experimental music, kind of work, shopping with other experimentalists,
Speaker 1: and then I got a call from some old school friends,
Speaker 1: including the guy i've into India with, and basically punk
Speaker 1: had happened. And the thing about point was it gave
Speaker 1: us permission to instead of looking at and watching other
Speaker 1: bands doing it, it it gave us permission to do it ourselves,
Speaker 1: so there was a very democratizing effect regardless of the
Speaker 1: style of the music. It was like, have a go time, right,
Speaker 1: you didn't have to be good. He's like even Lester
Speaker 1: Banks was a musician playing his typewriter. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Before that, maybe it was just to beyond the dream
Speaker 1: of a of a kind of regular guy from the
Speaker 1: north of England. You know, that's what something that millionaires do,
Speaker 1: and and we couldn't do it. But suddenly we could,
Speaker 1: and so we had to go and we had the
Speaker 1: original Thompson Twins, which was well, well, let's slow. You're
Speaker 1: in the southwest of England. Yeah, I moved back up
Speaker 1: to where I was raised in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: so then you're there and you're working jobs at this point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I worked in a psychiatric hospital and then as a
Speaker 1: teacher for a while, okay, and then you ultimately go
Speaker 1: to London. Yeah. And if you look up legendarily it
Speaker 1: says you were a squatter. Is that true? Absolutely, that's
Speaker 1: the only way we could afford that done. In fact,
Speaker 1: it was a lifeline to all sorts of creative activity
Speaker 1: for many many people, you know, because by living for free,
Speaker 1: you basically had time on your hands to be creative,
Speaker 1: whereas if you paid rent, suddenly you know, you were
Speaker 1: working every day and coming home exhausted and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So it caused and in my in my street of
Speaker 1: squatted houses, I think there was six or eight bands really,
Speaker 1: so it really was a kind of hothouse of that
Speaker 1: kind of activity. Okay, you know this is not something
Speaker 1: most people do in America, So it's an abending building. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: what about like electricity and water. Well, there was a
Speaker 1: peculiar de facto loophole in this in this argument where
Speaker 1: the buildings were owned by the city council and they
Speaker 1: thought that it was better to have people living in
Speaker 1: them because a they looked after the buildings, be they
Speaker 1: didn't go into the homeless register. So it was a
Speaker 1: kind of, like I said, de facto solution to a
Speaker 1: big problem. And as long as you didn't trash the
Speaker 1: place for a while, at least they were happy and
Speaker 1: it was a safe situation. Well I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: exactly because you know, inevitably it was also the landing
Speaker 1: place for a lot of desperate characters. You know, so
Speaker 1: you had to be ready to jump out of bed
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night sometimes. Okay, So you
Speaker 1: moved down because you're friend from school went to India says,
Speaker 1: now's the time. Um, I know. I moved back up
Speaker 1: to Chester Villa, Derbyshire, where we'd all been at school together,
Speaker 1: formed the band, then moved the band down to London,
Speaker 1: you know, in seeking success because you know it's like
Speaker 1: coming to Hollywood or something. Okay, but it was the
Speaker 1: the punk era. But did you really think you could
Speaker 1: have success? Yeah? I think so, as I'm saying that,
Speaker 1: there was something about the punk era which said anyone
Speaker 1: can have a go and look, there are bands making
Speaker 1: it that are just doing it with three chords. You
Speaker 1: don't have to be a kind of diamond encrusted jazz
Speaker 1: enthusiastics in order to get through. So before the punk era,
Speaker 1: did you think you were going to be a professional musician? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but not in a band. Well we're doing what probably teaching. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you didn't wake up with dreams of stardom. I
Speaker 1: think it ended up that way once it's kind of
Speaker 1: tasted the kind of flavor of that. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a very alluring thing, isn't it too? To be part
Speaker 1: of something very exciting and to be adored for doing that,
Speaker 1: um really hooks your ego like crazy, you know, and
Speaker 1: and in a way that gives you the energy to
Speaker 1: pursue and put the extra work in which it takes.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of hard work to do this,
Speaker 1: So you can't do it unless somehow you're totally enthusiastic. Okay,
Speaker 1: so there were six like six billions in the Squats.
Speaker 1: Then other than yourself and your meat, did anybody else
Speaker 1: make it from that error? Yes, the Slits and the
Speaker 1: pop group the Slits, there was. The woman in the
Speaker 1: Slits wrote that book a couple of years ago. She's
Speaker 1: a great writer. Okay, so now you're in the squat,
Speaker 1: you're rehearsing every day. Yeah, what's the next step after that?
Speaker 1: I was just looking for gigs everywhere, and then, you know,
Speaker 1: as soon as we can, we buy an old try
Speaker 1: can old van, and then we start to buy bits
Speaker 1: and pieces of p A equipment, just so that if
Speaker 1: anyone wants a gig, we can just offer the whole solution.
Speaker 1: You know, have van m p A will travel was
Speaker 1: the kind of motto of the moment um. So we
Speaker 1: did that for a while and then started releasing our
Speaker 1: own singles on our own Okay, first question, you weren't
Speaker 1: worried about all that p p A equipment getting stolen? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but we put paddlelocks on the doors of the Okay,
Speaker 1: and now you wanted to make a record. What do
Speaker 1: you do for money? What do you do for studio? Producer? Engineer?
Speaker 1: We begged and borrowed time from a friend who had
Speaker 1: access to a studio and someone who eventually became our publisher.
Speaker 1: I was starting out in the music business and had
Speaker 1: a little studio and things, so yeah, they gave us time,
Speaker 1: and we did the first record that way, and then
Speaker 1: slowly but surely we were chopping around for a deal
Speaker 1: and it's you know, it came, but not not in
Speaker 1: one big kind of arrival moment. We had to work
Speaker 1: hard for it, and in fact, we put out a
Speaker 1: couple of albums before we had any kind of hit.
Speaker 1: But we were well known in the kind of student
Speaker 1: venue circuit for putting on a good show. How many
Speaker 1: shows were you playing at that time? I have no idea.
Speaker 1: We're playing a lot or a little a lot? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: would you play any covers? Were all original? I? Was
Speaker 1: going to say all original, but there were a couple
Speaker 1: of occasions when we played covers um just for fun,
Speaker 1: but nothing that became well known for us to play.
Speaker 1: So then how do you get a record deal? Well,
Speaker 1: in those days you just just kind of trail around
Speaker 1: the record companies with a cassette and throw cassette, give
Speaker 1: them cassettes and watch them throw them over their shoulders
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And I think the magic moment was
Speaker 1: instead of giving them a cassette, you have your independent
Speaker 1: release single and they reluctantly will have to listen to that.
Speaker 1: People like John Peel started playing us on the radio.
Speaker 1: We got some an unexpected and unpaid for promotion that way,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly a record company goes, oh that's of interest,
Speaker 1: and we signed, actually with the German company called Hanser
Speaker 1: did an album, but we were distributed in the UK
Speaker 1: through Arista, and we thought this is crazy what we
Speaker 1: go when we really go go directly with Ariston and
Speaker 1: we ended up on the label. Okay, when did you
Speaker 1: get a manager? Oh around about that time, I think
Speaker 1: when we were looking for the deal, and he was
Speaker 1: another college friend. You know, just how long was he
Speaker 1: the manager? Through the hit years and where is he today?
Speaker 1: He lives in England and in the southwest of England.
Speaker 1: Not in the music business an right, Okay, so you're
Speaker 1: you're making progress, but on some level you're struggling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we hadn't made it yet with a position in
Speaker 1: any chart. Okay. So was there tension in the band,
Speaker 1: people threatening to quit, etcetera. It came to that, but
Speaker 1: there was a kind of embarrassing moment that brought this
Speaker 1: all to the four and in our second album, which
Speaker 1: luckily we got produced by Steve Lilly White, which was
Speaker 1: an amazing kind of step forward for for people in
Speaker 1: our situation. This was before now, this was actually on Arista,
Speaker 1: but we hadn't yet had a hit. Okay, so we
Speaker 1: were just doing our thing. Did you get lily White?
Speaker 1: He must have liked us. I don't know. These things happen. Um,
Speaker 1: So we're making an album and we didn't have enough
Speaker 1: material and at that moment I just got enough money
Speaker 1: to buy a synthesizer. So during the time of those
Speaker 1: albums sessions, I was at home with a synthesizer, which
Speaker 1: what was the synthesizer? It was an Oberheim b x
Speaker 1: A And for years that was the only SYNTHI ever you, okay,
Speaker 1: because it was quite expensive and I couldn't afford more.
Speaker 1: But anyway, at home, I wrote this song on the synthesizer,
Speaker 1: which I thought, this is catchy, it's not like the
Speaker 1: other stuff. But when we ran out of enough material
Speaker 1: for the album, I said to everyone in the band,
Speaker 1: it's all right, I've got this other song, and what
Speaker 1: I'll do is I'll come in and teach you parts
Speaker 1: to replace what I played on the synthesizer, which we did,
Speaker 1: and it became this dance track call in the Name
Speaker 1: of Love unbelievable. It will really white produce that he did, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: in the Name jumped out of the radio. There you go. Well.
Speaker 1: The embarrassing thing was it was supposed to be the
Speaker 1: filler at the end of side and it ended up
Speaker 1: being the big international dance hit that in a way
Speaker 1: was writing on the wall for me that I needed
Speaker 1: to pursue this more kind of what I thought of
Speaker 1: as a high tech approach to making music. And within
Speaker 1: a few months of I think, we toured for a while.
Speaker 1: But within a few months of that the band had
Speaker 1: kind of imploded. It wasn't what it used to be anymore.
Speaker 1: And basically the three of us that became the famous
Speaker 1: Thompson Twins if you like that, Myself, Joe and Alana.
Speaker 1: We we became this kind of studio unit in which
Speaker 1: we realized for the first time that we weren't a
Speaker 1: band that had to write parts for us to play.
Speaker 1: We were designers of records. And that was a kind
Speaker 1: of transforming realization. Suddenly we weren't thinking, well, what's the
Speaker 1: guitarist going to do in this So one of the
Speaker 1: first things we did was make an album without any guitars,
Speaker 1: and that was really liberating for us. Suddenly it was
Speaker 1: about songs, sounds, experiments, and technology. Okay, were the other
Speaker 1: members of the being angry, some more than others, probably,
Speaker 1: But I think there was a natural end to the
Speaker 1: ark of, you know, the narrative arc of that of
Speaker 1: that lineup. And so I mean, I'm still close to two,
Speaker 1: at least two of the other members I see quite often.
Speaker 1: And are they in music, um unprofessionally yes. There Now,
Speaker 1: when you know the Thompson Twins hit and you looked
Speaker 1: at the three members, it looked like you were essentially
Speaker 1: the act. What exactly did a Lota and Joe contribute,
Speaker 1: I would say as in me well, Um, we had
Speaker 1: an actually formal division of labor in the Thompson Twins
Speaker 1: that you you know that you know well, which is
Speaker 1: that I did the music and the recording. We wrote
Speaker 1: songs together, although that was mostly a lander on words
Speaker 1: and me on the music. Joe contributed occasionally but not
Speaker 1: very much, although we're equally credited in all songs. Um.
Speaker 1: So I did all the studio work. Atlanta was in
Speaker 1: charge of the visual image, so she did photos, clothing
Speaker 1: videos which were just exploding as as a new means
Speaker 1: of promotion, and Joe did the live show because he
Speaker 1: had a kind of theater background. He wanted to get
Speaker 1: all the lighting and stuff sorted out and make the
Speaker 1: drama of it. So we stuck to that very very clear.
Speaker 1: Was actually written down in a kind of weird manifesto
Speaker 1: when we set out, Okay, these are aims and objectives
Speaker 1: and this is how we're going to do it. So
Speaker 1: it was a peculiarly rational and kind of hyper organized
Speaker 1: approach that we took at that point. Okay, well, you
Speaker 1: know the old expression, and where there's a hit, there's
Speaker 1: a writ In this particular case, as the b M
Speaker 1: cub successful, then it goes past his success. I mean,
Speaker 1: are people used with the songs individually? Joe didn't contribute much.
Speaker 1: Does that anger the other members of the royalty participants? Well,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't do, because there's something about being in a
Speaker 1: band that that implies you're all in it together to
Speaker 1: some extent, you know, And that's the way it goes
Speaker 1: when you when you're seeking success together and who knows
Speaker 1: what may happen, then I think you will throw your
Speaker 1: hats into the same ring. However, there's another way of
Speaker 1: doing it, which is where you know, the main songwriter
Speaker 1: gets all the money, and that can lead to a
Speaker 1: lot of hard feeling. I think, Um, because a band
Speaker 1: is a band as a band if there's some magic
Speaker 1: to be exploited in that band, and I think it
Speaker 1: should be recognized. And there's another rather peculiar thing as well,
Speaker 1: which is if you say everyone gets paid equally regardless,
Speaker 1: then people stop suggesting half witted ideas to just get
Speaker 1: their foot in the door of the of the money flow.
Speaker 1: You know, they say, well, I'm going to be well
Speaker 1: off regardless. So um, I think that was something we
Speaker 1: realized in the previous incarnation of the band that it's
Speaker 1: not about everyone making suggestions just so they can earn money.
Speaker 1: So the first album you do as the three is
Speaker 1: quick Step and Psychic, which I think was just called
Speaker 1: Sidekicks here in the States, and we recorded it in
Speaker 1: substantially anyway in the Bahamas and Compass Point Studios with
Speaker 1: Alex Sadkin, who to me was just a name on
Speaker 1: a label. You know. I've seen Bob Marley and Grace
Speaker 1: Jones records with Alex Sadkin written under that, So it
Speaker 1: was it was a great pleasure to do that. And
Speaker 1: of course he was super smart and taught me a
Speaker 1: lot about how to make a good record. What do
Speaker 1: he what do he teach you? I think that kind
Speaker 1: of level of perfectionism because he didn't come so much
Speaker 1: from the kind of the drama of rock and roll.
Speaker 1: He was. He started out as a cutting engineer, t boy,
Speaker 1: you know. So he worked at Criterion Students, I think
Speaker 1: in Miami and learned how to cut a good record,
Speaker 1: and he learned that you can't have the fattest based
Speaker 1: sound in the world if you also want the biggest guitar.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a compromise to be made. And and
Speaker 1: and so he's looking for those sounds, the shape and
Speaker 1: size of the snare drum, which is gonna groove the
Speaker 1: song along but not take up too much space. And
Speaker 1: I think when you listened to reggae records, there's something
Speaker 1: to be learned there. You know, everything has their place
Speaker 1: in terms of frequency. They don't compete with each other.
Speaker 1: Rock music is a mess by comparison. You know, all
Speaker 1: the instruments are getting each other's way and it makes
Speaker 1: a kind of glorious mess. But he came more from
Speaker 1: the reggae um experience, I think, and we're all the
Speaker 1: songs written before you go out there. So how long
Speaker 1: did it take to cut the record? I think we
Speaker 1: did like a month and a half in the Bahamas
Speaker 1: and then went and finished it and mixed it in
Speaker 1: rack studios in London. So in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: the record companies usually don't pay for that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff at this point in time. But in terms of
Speaker 1: going a compass point, if you're thinking, as somebody, well, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm traveling away from home. It's a relaxation party place.
Speaker 1: How do you make a record in that environment? Oh?
Speaker 1: We were driven, I mean, you're right, we didn't. We
Speaker 1: didn't really know what we're getting into. And we remember
Speaker 1: we turned up with our kind of London winter clothes.
Speaker 1: We were punks that we had leather jackets and jeans
Speaker 1: and it's incredibly hard. So the first thing we had
Speaker 1: to do was virtually strip make in order to get
Speaker 1: any work done. Um. But because there was a culture
Speaker 1: of getting on with a lot of great records got
Speaker 1: made there. Um. There was a slightly overrelaxed kind of
Speaker 1: island vibe which irritated me a bit. But I've seen
Speaker 1: got into swimming out to the reef every morning before working.
Speaker 1: That you know, put me in the mood. Hey. Um,
Speaker 1: we we did good work there, and I think it
Speaker 1: was just because we were driven. And that was also
Speaker 1: in the pre internet era, so there are fewer distractions. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it was we had, as I recall, we had to
Speaker 1: book phone calls, so if we wanted to get in
Speaker 1: touch with New York or London, we had to kind
Speaker 1: of put in a request to the local telephone exchange. Now,
Speaker 1: ARIA still was run by Clive Davis, historically interferes with
Speaker 1: the artistic process of the act. Everyone warned us, hey,
Speaker 1: whatever you do, don't get him involved. And he. I mean,
Speaker 1: luckily he had other distractions at the time, I'll put
Speaker 1: it that way, including some great artists that he was
Speaker 1: concentrating on. So we almost kind of snuck under the
Speaker 1: radar as the kind of act that everyone thought Clive
Speaker 1: won't understand. And maybe he did more than we gave
Speaker 1: him credit for, but we didn't have a great deal
Speaker 1: to do with him in terms of Clive, what do
Speaker 1: you think about this latest record and what should we do?
Speaker 1: It was more A and rd from the UK in fact,
Speaker 1: by Simon Potts. And yeah, as as I said, we
Speaker 1: got warned to keep out of out of the clutches
Speaker 1: of it. So when the record is finished, do you
Speaker 1: think you have a hit because you had in the
Speaker 1: Name of Love that was on the previous record, right, So, um, yes,
Speaker 1: I think we wrote four songs that we thought we
Speaker 1: were in the bag with, you know. And to this
Speaker 1: day that's one of my rules, like when you've got
Speaker 1: four songs you feel confident about, there's a glorious moment,
Speaker 1: then you can start going way left of center because
Speaker 1: you know you're safe. So instead of always looking for hits,
Speaker 1: you can do something a little bit more experimental. So
Speaker 1: I think We went there with a with a feeling
Speaker 1: that we we've kind of nailed it somehow, and the
Speaker 1: record comes out and what happens We had our first
Speaker 1: um TV and chart regular chart hit with Love on
Speaker 1: your Side in the UK. So finally we caught up,
Speaker 1: you know, because in the Name of Love was big
Speaker 1: news in the States, but not so much in the UK.
Speaker 1: So finally we're recognized in our hometown and things are
Speaker 1: going off, and we tour worldwide and everything's good, and
Speaker 1: we go to make a second album and everyone says, well,
Speaker 1: let's do it the same way. We were enjoying working
Speaker 1: with Alex Atkin. We liked to compass port. Let's go
Speaker 1: back there and we'll mix it rack like we did before.
Speaker 1: But this time, before going we had written hold Me Now.
Speaker 1: Hol May Now was one of those songs that just
Speaker 1: insisted itself upon us, you know, and I knew this
Speaker 1: was massive, So we recorded it in London at Rack
Speaker 1: Studios before going there with Alex. Um I did it
Speaker 1: on my own, and then Alex subsequently arrived very very
Speaker 1: he was busy with someone else. I can't remember if
Speaker 1: it was Duran, Durand or something. No, it wasn't it
Speaker 1: was someone else. But anyway, by the time he showed up,
Speaker 1: everything was done, apart from absolutely nailing the vocal. So
Speaker 1: he helped me get the vocal because it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to produce your own vocal, you know, you have to
Speaker 1: wear two hats. And again to this day when it
Speaker 1: comes to the vocals, I like to just be the
Speaker 1: singer and not be the producer. Um So we did that,
Speaker 1: and then we went to Compass Point with a single
Speaker 1: going up the charts in the UK and in the
Speaker 1: US and no phone contact, so we didn't know this,
Speaker 1: but we knew that it was out there doing business
Speaker 1: for us. And then one day, you know, we book
Speaker 1: a phone call two someone at Arista in New York
Speaker 1: and they're just going crazy that this record it is
Speaker 1: super hot. They were so excited, and of course the
Speaker 1: excitement got through to us. But the point of the
Speaker 1: story is that it's set a very high standard. With
Speaker 1: that excitement coming from the rest of the world, we
Speaker 1: knew the album had to be brilliant. We weren't just
Speaker 1: fooling around anymore, you know, we were deadly serious about it,
Speaker 1: and I think that's some of our best work. You know,
Speaker 1: I love that album. And I listen to Doctor Doctor,
Speaker 1: just the way it starts off and into the Gap.
Speaker 1: I mean I listened to it, not because we were
Speaker 1: doing this. I mean I tell you a story after
Speaker 1: story of listening to that album, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: just etherorial. It's like in another world that it was made,
Speaker 1: like you're visiting another galaxy and it still stands up today. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you think that. I mean, I kind of
Speaker 1: agree with you. We were hot. I mean, we're working
Speaker 1: with the right people in terms of the engineering producer,
Speaker 1: and it just captured what we wanted to do at
Speaker 1: that time. We'd become less Uh, it's interesting. I think
Speaker 1: we've become less technical about the arrangement. The previous album, Psychics,
Speaker 1: was all synthesizers and drum machines, whereas In to the
Speaker 1: Gap saw guitars and pianos and strings and stuff appearing.
Speaker 1: So we were opening our palette to the possibilities of
Speaker 1: of making kind of classic pop records. Okay, go back,
Speaker 1: how did all me now come together? Alanna and I
Speaker 1: who we're in a relationship with someone had a big
Speaker 1: fight actually, and we had you know, the way I
Speaker 1: explained it is that you know, adults sometimes have to
Speaker 1: get over those kind of things and make friends again,
Speaker 1: and we did, and the song grew out of that
Speaker 1: experience of what it's like to kind of feel terrible
Speaker 1: about what's happened in a relationship and then finally find
Speaker 1: her way of getting it back together again. And she
Speaker 1: wrote the lyrics and you wrote the music. We wrote
Speaker 1: the lyrics between us, and I think I wrote all
Speaker 1: the music. And how fast did it come together? I
Speaker 1: think it was immediate. I was all written in an
Speaker 1: evening um. But then Joe, who subsequently turned up, made
Speaker 1: some suggestions about the melody of the verse I seem
Speaker 1: to recall, so he did contribute to that song, um
Speaker 1: in the eleventh hour. Okay, so you wrote the song, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you immediately knew this was a hit. Yes, I
Speaker 1: mean if you do get those feelings, so I mean
Speaker 1: maybe those maybe those feelings can sometimes fool you they're
Speaker 1: kind of shimeric or something. But I often get that
Speaker 1: kind of heartbeat that mrs A bait, and you go, wow,
Speaker 1: this is something special. Pursue it, Tom, don't let this
Speaker 1: one get away, you know. So I definitely felt it
Speaker 1: over that songe. Okay, when you feel that way. Are
Speaker 1: you afraid you're gonna suck it up? Unwax um, I
Speaker 1: suck it up before I even get to wax. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, it's an incredibly responsible thing you have to.
Speaker 1: I mean, these days, it's easier in a way because
Speaker 1: you can guard the version of the song that you
Speaker 1: think is great, do more to it and go back
Speaker 1: to the original if you if if you feel you've
Speaker 1: lost your way. However, back in the day, I don't
Speaker 1: think that was quite so easy. I mean, goodness knows
Speaker 1: how many great songs have been rendered mediocre by overworking them.
Speaker 1: I mean it must be true. I certainly hold my
Speaker 1: hand up to say that happens in um. But conversely,
Speaker 1: some mediocre ideas sometimes get polished into an interesting direction
Speaker 1: that you never expected. So you know, swings and round events.
Speaker 1: So I just know, when rating something, sometimes you're regar
Speaker 1: while this is really good. Then you become self conscious
Speaker 1: and it can't quite sustain. Yeah, I think there's a okay,
Speaker 1: there's something inherent in the quality of rock and roll,
Speaker 1: And I've always counted pop music as the kind of
Speaker 1: it's in the family of rock and roll, even if
Speaker 1: it's not the boss, right, it's the kids, sister. Now,
Speaker 1: there's something about it which has to be dangerous. It
Speaker 1: can't just be cute and safe and in a comfort
Speaker 1: zone in all its life. Otherwise it doesn't do the
Speaker 1: job it's meant to do, which is, you know, alert
Speaker 1: you to possibilities and the revolutionary spirit of youth. And
Speaker 1: those are the things that I think we work. We
Speaker 1: kind of iron out of our work by overdoing it,
Speaker 1: over polishing it. And actually it's a kind of obvious
Speaker 1: thing to say anyway, but as long as there's a
Speaker 1: kind of danger that things could go terribly wrong in
Speaker 1: what you're doing, that's the kind of balance to maintain. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's jump forward. Because you said rock and roll in youth. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're not a member of the youth now, so can
Speaker 1: you capture the Z guys somehow and the music you
Speaker 1: make it? I mean, I'm so lucky to be able
Speaker 1: to put my finger on that nostalgic experience of it,
Speaker 1: you know, and say, wow, this was so incredibly amazing
Speaker 1: for most of my life and I can still feel it,
Speaker 1: and I can still remind other people of it as well. Um,
Speaker 1: I have to say, I'm having strange experience with contemporary
Speaker 1: pop music. I was doing something incredibly mundane yesterday and
Speaker 1: shopping for clothes in l A and I lost kind
Speaker 1: of how many stores I was driven out of by
Speaker 1: the inane music I was hearing. So and this deeply
Speaker 1: troubles me because I'm someone who loves pop music, and
Speaker 1: I can fight to find something in every piece of music.
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm generous, I can always find something
Speaker 1: that's good in it. But the averages weren't great yesterday,
Speaker 1: I tell you so for me, it's lost something special,
Speaker 1: and it is that evocation of the spirit of change
Speaker 1: in the world. In other words, rock and roll was
Speaker 1: once a vehicle for social change. We did it because
Speaker 1: we wanted the world to be a better place, not
Speaker 1: because we wanted to be famous and rich and drive
Speaker 1: a fast car, which for sure we're subsequent benefits, but
Speaker 1: that's not the So do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Somehow that's become the reason you're speaking. You're preaching of
Speaker 1: the converted here. But also I have to ask, as
Speaker 1: you touched on this, is it a matter of hip hop?
Speaker 1: Is it a matter of the tier it away? What
Speaker 1: is it that bugs you? No, it's neither of those things.
Speaker 1: I mean, they sound like good things to me, okay.
Speaker 1: I think one major thing, especially with pop music, is
Speaker 1: that songs are written by committee now, and a few
Speaker 1: members of the committee are often wearing a marketing hat.
Speaker 1: So in a general sense, you no longer trust the
Speaker 1: voice of what's coming through the song. It's just made
Speaker 1: to be catchy and insistent and make you stream it
Speaker 1: for a while and then go somewhere else. In other words,
Speaker 1: it's it's ambitions have changed to Lee. Okay, do you
Speaker 1: believe forgetting thirteen writers you were in a band. How
Speaker 1: important is collaboration in the creative process. I think it
Speaker 1: varies in importance from time to time, and I think
Speaker 1: it's I think it's good for any creative people to
Speaker 1: do both. I love working on my own, but I
Speaker 1: also love working with other people, and sometimes it's very
Speaker 1: clear to me that a different kind of work emerges
Speaker 1: as a result of either practice. Do you think you're
Speaker 1: driven to higher height if you're working with somebody else,
Speaker 1: I think you're driven away from your own repetitive thought
Speaker 1: processes and into new ones. So it's a very valuable thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes I like to just produce other people
Speaker 1: because it's not my ideas I'm just helping them to
Speaker 1: get the best out of it, and that to me
Speaker 1: is a kind of eye opening thing. Oh wow, they've
Speaker 1: done something I never would have thought of doing, and
Speaker 1: they turned around and and thank me. But actually I
Speaker 1: should be thinking, Okay, so now you're on a massive
Speaker 1: tour in the week of hold me now, good experience
Speaker 1: or bad experience? Good? Yes? And it was it was
Speaker 1: a NonStop party. And you know, I was Mr. Self
Speaker 1: discipline because by this stage I was not drinking or
Speaker 1: doing drugs or anything. I was very, very soberly observing
Speaker 1: and enjoying everything that went down. So how did you
Speaker 1: start doing drugs in alcohol? I just committed myself to
Speaker 1: other activities and doing yoga and meditation and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But what what inspired you to start the idea that
Speaker 1: there was something beyond just having a good time, um
Speaker 1: and then waking up the next morning feeling bad about it.
Speaker 1: But also, there's a lot of stresses. People use drugs
Speaker 1: because they can't fall asleep on the road. So sure,
Speaker 1: and there were times I was jealous, you know. And
Speaker 1: interesting enough, that's how we got into country music, because
Speaker 1: you know, down the back of the bus after a gig,
Speaker 1: everyone was partying, I will go and sit next to
Speaker 1: the driver who was always listening to country. So you know,
Speaker 1: I ended up buying Stetler brother albums that I didn't
Speaker 1: even know existed before that, you know. And now are
Speaker 1: you in general are you a loner? No? No, I
Speaker 1: like the company of people. But do you need your
Speaker 1: alone time? Yes? Right, okay, so then that's a massive success.
Speaker 1: Do you make any money, yes, but not all of
Speaker 1: it fell into our bank accounts because we we ran
Speaker 1: the kind of um we around, the kind of operation
Speaker 1: where if we had a successful album, we think great,
Speaker 1: now we can put an even bigger show on in
Speaker 1: the next tour, you know, And we basically spent it
Speaker 1: all on the band rather than ourselves. Um, So we
Speaker 1: didn't make person more fortunes, perhaps as big as we
Speaker 1: might have done. So then you make another record, another album. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The next one was his to Feature Days, and we
Speaker 1: started off recording it ourselves, um in Paris um where
Speaker 1: I actually became ill and things ground to our heart
Speaker 1: and it was all a little bit of too much
Speaker 1: pressure for me. And we were facing a tour that
Speaker 1: I realized we wouldn't have the album ready for, so
Speaker 1: we canceled this upcoming tour and thought, let's have a
Speaker 1: rethink about this. And at that moment Narl Rodgers got
Speaker 1: in touch with us and said he want to do
Speaker 1: it with us. So that was an interesting kind of
Speaker 1: morsel to to attract us to New York and do that.
Speaker 1: You got ill, But what was that about. I was
Speaker 1: living in Paris at the time. I think I got
Speaker 1: so stressed out with I was working in two studios simultaneously.
Speaker 1: It was driving me crazy, you know, and was all
Speaker 1: to try and meet the false deadline of this tour
Speaker 1: that had been booked on the assumption that we've finished
Speaker 1: the album, and I simply wasn't ready to walk away
Speaker 1: from the studios, so um, I had to kind of
Speaker 1: cry halt to the process. And when it stopped, I
Speaker 1: kind of collapse into an exhaustion that I've been holding
Speaker 1: back on. I think, you know, because you do that.
Speaker 1: I often do that at the end of a tour.
Speaker 1: I think this is going fine, and then the day
Speaker 1: after a tour because the accumulated exhaustion, I've been in denial.
Speaker 1: I know exactly. You don't like sometimes I'm on the
Speaker 1: road for weeks and I enjoy going from place to place,
Speaker 1: and as long as you're going from place to place,
Speaker 1: you're fine. It's who stay at one place you crash. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's something like that. It's a denial of and of
Speaker 1: course to travel into gig it's exciting, so you're living
Speaker 1: on the adrenaline of that as well. It's the other problem.
Speaker 1: But when we finally said okay, let's let's hold the
Speaker 1: album for a moment, wait until Nile is ready, because
Speaker 1: he was working with someone else. Um, so we had
Speaker 1: a little break during which time I really went downhill.
Speaker 1: And then the album comes out and it is not
Speaker 1: as successful as Into the Gap, not quite no, but
Speaker 1: it was still a pretty successful record and took us
Speaker 1: around the world another time for a big tour. But
Speaker 1: maybe the kind of narrative arc of our kind of
Speaker 1: shiny pop success had begun, had gone over the peak,
Speaker 1: you know, and we had to turn into something else.
Speaker 1: And I think also at that point at the end
Speaker 1: of that tours when Joe left, so we became the
Speaker 1: two pieces. And why did he leave, Well, we'd have
Speaker 1: to ask him that, but I think it probably he
Speaker 1: felt they'd done enough and it wasn't going the way
Speaker 1: he wanted to. I think he wanted to settle down
Speaker 1: with his girlfriend and not be chasing around. I mean,
Speaker 1: because Atlanta and I were together in a relationship, it
Speaker 1: felt easy for us to just speak constantly on the
Speaker 1: move because we were together, you know. But he us
Speaker 1: and squeezed out no, not at all, no, not in anyway. Okay,
Speaker 1: so he's out of the beard, and what's the next step.
Speaker 1: Then we became the two piece stops to It and
Speaker 1: went on to make UM three albums that way, which
Speaker 1: was all fun. And but the nature of the music
Speaker 1: business is changing, and I remember we kind of decided,
Speaker 1: for example, we didn't even want to tour anymore. We
Speaker 1: just want to make videos, and kind of it seemed
Speaker 1: like an exciting idea as an alternative to slugging around
Speaker 1: the world, to actually play to people via a screen.
Speaker 1: I mean, now, I don't think that at all. I
Speaker 1: think it's the most appalling way of trying to communicate
Speaker 1: with an audience. But then it seemed like a revolutionary
Speaker 1: idea that might bear fruit, and so we just kind
Speaker 1: of talked ourselves out of touring UM And you know,
Speaker 1: if we hold that thought, it ended up being nearly
Speaker 1: thirty years until I went on the stage and sang
Speaker 1: those songs again. But you end up moving to New Zealand.
Speaker 1: What was the thought there, Well, Atlanta was from New Zealand.
Speaker 1: We had kids, and I think she quite rightly thought
Speaker 1: that's a great place to raise them. Um, and let's
Speaker 1: get away from this because us, for as long as
Speaker 1: we're in London, we're part of the music business, you know,
Speaker 1: and so to retire from that, especially to retire from
Speaker 1: mainstream pop music, it felt necessary to go and live
Speaker 1: in the bush somewhere. And then the band turns into Babble. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that had started in London before we left. We
Speaker 1: did one Babble album which I really adore. Actually, that
Speaker 1: first Babble album, there's something about finally throwing off the
Speaker 1: shackles of having to write pop songs. So there must
Speaker 1: have been a lot of stuff, a lot of accumulated
Speaker 1: ideas that were never suitable for pop songs that got
Speaker 1: an expression in that album. And of course it was
Speaker 1: a strange thing. We we signed to a different company
Speaker 1: at that point as well, to Warner, and changed our name,
Speaker 1: and I don't know quite how we pulled that off.
Speaker 1: They must have thought we were crazy, and we probably were.
Speaker 1: In terms of our careers. But we simply had lost
Speaker 1: the desire to chase it anymore. You know. It was
Speaker 1: about being creative, but not about Korea. Okay, but that
Speaker 1: was nearly thirty years ago. Do you wake up one
Speaker 1: day and say, holy sh it, I'm not in the
Speaker 1: in the stream anymore? No, because I mean other water
Speaker 1: has got under the British since then, and when I
Speaker 1: have raised family and you know, I'm I'm thirty years older.
Speaker 1: So to me, in a way, the naive dream of
Speaker 1: the career was something that that I started with when
Speaker 1: I was a teenager and gave up when I was
Speaker 1: thirty five or something. You know, I don't have that
Speaker 1: dream anymore. Um. I do it more because I love
Speaker 1: it rather than because it's going to turn into something amazing.
Speaker 1: So to be point blank, does the tops and twins
Speaker 1: or did it throw off enough money that okay, it
Speaker 1: all works? You mean, do I have to tour now
Speaker 1: or there's been thirty years? You know? Did you have
Speaker 1: to you know, what were you surviving for thirty years? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was it was. There was trickling royalty checks all
Speaker 1: that time. I'm very lucky and it paid for me
Speaker 1: to do other things in music which weren't earning money,
Speaker 1: like I have a project as a dub artist, as
Speaker 1: an Indian classical artist, as um an experimental electronic artist,
Speaker 1: and as a film scorewriter as well. Now, apart from
Speaker 1: the film scores, none of these other things were making money,
Speaker 1: you know. But I thought, finally I've earned the chance
Speaker 1: to do these things which will always shove to one
Speaker 1: side where we were being quote unquote successful, you know.
Speaker 1: So I spent thirty years doing that and I've had
Speaker 1: a great time, and most of those projects are still
Speaker 1: alive and kicking as well. It's just that they're so underground.
Speaker 1: Most people don't know about them, and that because that's
Speaker 1: the nature of underground, right, you don't get to hear
Speaker 1: about But are you angry or upset that they don't
Speaker 1: have as wider audience as they might know? No. In fact,
Speaker 1: for me, part of the relief of those projects is
Speaker 1: that you don't have to spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: promoting them. They just are what they are if people
Speaker 1: happen upon them and like them, and that's fine. They
Speaker 1: don't need to prove themselves in any other way. Whereas
Speaker 1: there's something about being in a pop group the reverse
Speaker 1: is true. You have to kind of push yourselves in
Speaker 1: front of people all the time and maximize every effort
Speaker 1: that you make. So you're in New Zealand. Ultimately the
Speaker 1: relationship ends. How long ago was that, oh, sixteen seventeen
Speaker 1: years okay? And then do you stay in New Zealand
Speaker 1: or what are you doing for a while? And then
Speaker 1: a ladder actually wanted to move back to London, and
Speaker 1: so to be so that we could carry on being
Speaker 1: parents to our kids, I agreed to go back to
Speaker 1: London as well, And so about fifteen sixteen years ago,
Speaker 1: and moved back to London. And then you got remarried.
Speaker 1: How did you meet your new wife? She is American,
Speaker 1: but I had met her in New Zealand and we
Speaker 1: still as a result of that, we because we both
Speaker 1: have New Zealand in our histories, we started going back
Speaker 1: there every winter, as I explained, and and so every
Speaker 1: year we spent part of our part of our time there.
Speaker 1: So you have two kids, I have two, she has three,
Speaker 1: So we have five. Okay, but start with your two kids.
Speaker 1: What are they up to? My son is a musician.
Speaker 1: Is he off the payroll? Just about? Yes, he's actually
Speaker 1: quite successful. In his own particular niche of very underground
Speaker 1: electronic experimental music. He lives in Estonia, really, which is
Speaker 1: an interesting choice. I've been there at Talen. He doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's exciting and also scary with you all Russian buildings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but anyway, he seems to be happy there. My daughter,
Speaker 1: who shield kick me for saying this, but she dropped
Speaker 1: out of school and then spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: changing the world one joint at a time. And then
Speaker 1: suddenly one day she said, I want to go back
Speaker 1: to university. So she's studying philosophy. So how did you
Speaker 1: decide to go back on the road. Well, I had
Speaker 1: so firmly put my pop music career behind me. I
Speaker 1: was doing lots of other interesting things. Why would I
Speaker 1: be even interested? And then one day I get a
Speaker 1: call from a Mexican pop artist called Alex Sintech saying
Speaker 1: he's got this crazy idea to write a song with
Speaker 1: each of his childhood heroes, and I was one of them.
Speaker 1: Would I do a fifty fifty deal with him? You know?
Speaker 1: So I thought this is crazy. I was slightly intrigued,
Speaker 1: and then, to my total shame, I thought, well, it's Mexico,
Speaker 1: so no one will see me doing this, right. Um,
Speaker 1: it was a way for me to slip back into it.
Speaker 1: And once I've done it, I realized how which I
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. So there I was, I think, this is great.
Speaker 1: I've just written a pop song again for the first
Speaker 1: time in a long time. And then by chance I
Speaker 1: got a call from Howard Jones saying he was going
Speaker 1: on tour in America wanted another artist to go on
Speaker 1: the bill, and was I interested? So how long ago
Speaker 1: was it? This is like four and a half five years, OK,
Speaker 1: So I tentatively agreed and found myself just carried along
Speaker 1: with his enthusiasm, and his management became my management as well,
Speaker 1: and so it's um, I had a kind of easy
Speaker 1: re entry into all of that stuff, and and for me,
Speaker 1: it was just enjoyment, and I really really enjoyed. I
Speaker 1: was very nervous at first, and I recall that the
Speaker 1: first gig I did after all that time playing those songs,
Speaker 1: I thought, I'll put it on a piece of introduction music,
Speaker 1: you know, before we go on stage, and I chose
Speaker 1: two to make an instrumental of one of the songs.
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to sing that, but everyone knew so
Speaker 1: waiting backstage this piece of music. It was called We
Speaker 1: Are Detective, and it was which is actually on the record.
Speaker 1: It's a duet between Atlanta and myself. So I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do that live, um so an instrumental version
Speaker 1: would be fine. But my point is this, while I'm
Speaker 1: backstage and I'm biting my finger ins and thinking, oh
Speaker 1: my god, what have I done here? What have I
Speaker 1: gotten into? I suddenly hear the audience singing the side,
Speaker 1: and I realized then that everything was going to be okay.
Speaker 1: This isn't a little club in Reading because we were
Speaker 1: warming up the next day we played to people, but
Speaker 1: this is our little warm up show, and a few
Speaker 1: fans have heard about it and gotten in and it
Speaker 1: was very very special and and exciting. But you see
Speaker 1: what I mean, I saidn't realize it wasn't about me
Speaker 1: getting it right. I had to show up and do
Speaker 1: my job, but the audience was going to do half
Speaker 1: the work for me anyway, because they just want to
Speaker 1: hear those songs again for such a long time without them,
Speaker 1: you know, And from that point I was it was
Speaker 1: just all fun. So how many gigs a year do
Speaker 1: you do? Well? Last year we did eighty five concerts,
Speaker 1: which was as busy as any time we did in
Speaker 1: the eighties. And so is that the right number for you?
Speaker 1: Maybe not every year. We're not doing this year, but
Speaker 1: next year. Maybe always with Howard Jones, Oh no, no,
Speaker 1: I haven't played with him sensory, although I do bump
Speaker 1: into him occasion at these eighties festivals that they have
Speaker 1: in Europe, you know, which a great fun. But I
Speaker 1: know most of this. This last year we've been touring
Speaker 1: with Culture Club and the B fifty twos, which was
Speaker 1: a good package as well, you know, as a kind
Speaker 1: of party night, and everyone was behaving themselves pretty much
Speaker 1: in your drug and alcohol free Oh yeah, okay. Now,
Speaker 1: one might say to go on the road and play
Speaker 1: the old hits is nostalgia obviously pays? Well? Does it
Speaker 1: bother you to be a jukebox of your old pulpit? Well,
Speaker 1: I think you've got to be completely pragmatic about this.
Speaker 1: I mean, I play new songs as well, but if
Speaker 1: that's all I did, people just wander off to the bar.
Speaker 1: I mean I know that right, only the keenness of
Speaker 1: the fans. So when I'm playing to a big mixed audience,
Speaker 1: some of whom have come to see other bands or
Speaker 1: whatever in the festival. I've got to deliver my hits
Speaker 1: otherwise they won't be satisfied. Luckily, I liked my hits
Speaker 1: as well, so between them I can play old and new.
Speaker 1: And also, you know, nostalgia can be a dirty word
Speaker 1: if that's all it is, but I think if it
Speaker 1: evokes a shared experience, and what I find is that
Speaker 1: there's a big emotional contact made with certain songs, and
Speaker 1: that's a real privilege. I mean, that doesn't happen in
Speaker 1: the course of normal life. To suddenly have the kind
Speaker 1: of welling up of an emotion about something that you
Speaker 1: did thirty five years ago with these people, that's a
Speaker 1: kind of weird thing. It's very special and very precious
Speaker 1: to me. Um and it gives me as also the
Speaker 1: excuse to to tour and to play new songs and
Speaker 1: make new records. Okay, but most acts from the seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties, when they make new music, it doesn't gain
Speaker 1: any big traction. Is that as a disincentive to make
Speaker 1: new music, Well, yes it is. And of course the
Speaker 1: background story to that is that people don't make money
Speaker 1: out of records period. Now whereas they used to. So
Speaker 1: it's all flipped now now, you know, the hardened business
Speaker 1: manager would say, well, you make a record to sell tickets,
Speaker 1: whereas on the old days you're toured to sell your record.
Speaker 1: Now that's changed everything in a way. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I think if you have it within you. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that I was going to be making a new
Speaker 1: album year and the year before, but I ended up
Speaker 1: doing it because I'm back in that saddle. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like it seems like the normal and natural thing
Speaker 1: to do, and I just love pop music. There's something
Speaker 1: incredibly special, given that I've been doing all these other
Speaker 1: kinds of music. There's something very special about the economy
Speaker 1: and directness of pop music that for me is like
Speaker 1: solving a crossword puzzle or something. You know that there's, um,
Speaker 1: there's an angle to it that really satisfies my brain some.
Speaker 1: But you can't climb the mountaintop every time. No no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, and nor should you want to. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's like I said, that's the game for the teenager too,
Speaker 1: to lure them into this in the first place. This
Speaker 1: the dream of being adored and famous and having won songs.
Speaker 1: Do well, Okay, but you think you could still write
Speaker 1: a part here that would be known by most of
Speaker 1: the public. Yes. Yes, although, of course, as we touched
Speaker 1: on earlier, the nature of pop music has changed. So
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can write in that particular way,
Speaker 1: but I seem to be able to write in a
Speaker 1: way that the eighties audience likes, at least because it
Speaker 1: reminds them. I suppose of the kind of formal organization
Speaker 1: and of of a three and a half minute pop
Speaker 1: song that we used to write back then. We'll staying
Speaker 1: down this top because rock did well. The brutal answer
Speaker 1: is yes, and it's really unfortunate. But it may be
Speaker 1: because the Internet has taken over from you know it.
Speaker 1: Put it this way, rock and roll was once an uncontained, uncontrollable,
Speaker 1: urgent energy that disurged its way through our culture and
Speaker 1: through our society. Slowly, but slowly, it was captured, controlled
Speaker 1: by corporate interests, and so it can't claim to be
Speaker 1: the very thing that defined its necessity in the first place,
Speaker 1: which was to be rebellious. Now it's just people dressing
Speaker 1: up and looking rebellious. Now things have changed, and not
Speaker 1: only in that respect, I think in black music, especially
Speaker 1: in R and B and hip hop. Di's still a
Speaker 1: rebellious nous. There's still a vitality which hasn't quite been captured,
Speaker 1: although I think it's teetering really closely. Um. But in
Speaker 1: terms of straight ahead pop music, it's kind of sad
Speaker 1: to see it go for the uncontained, dangerous elements of
Speaker 1: our culture all living in the internet now and not
Speaker 1: in the grooves of records. That's just the sad fact.
Speaker 1: So what's the whole from music? Well, I remember music
Speaker 1: was there before rock and roll, and it will be
Speaker 1: here a long time after it, because it's a fundamental,
Speaker 1: primal urge of us to make sound and communicate and
Speaker 1: enjoy it. And nearer I live in France, there's a
Speaker 1: cave where twenty thousand plus years ago pe All went
Speaker 1: in to paint pictures of large animals. So that's the
Speaker 1: one that where the German director made a movie about
Speaker 1: no that was chove, which you can't go into because
Speaker 1: they're very frightened that the you know, the humidity of
Speaker 1: the and the michael organisms in our breath will destroy it,
Speaker 1: which they would. So now this place you can go
Speaker 1: into because it's they discovered graffiti from the seventeenth century,
Speaker 1: so they realized people have been going there a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, So it's very carefully controlled. They have carbon
Speaker 1: monoxide and dioxide sensors. As soon as the temperature rises
Speaker 1: by three degrees, you're out all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But I go back repeatedly because half a mile into
Speaker 1: this mountain there's a place where there's lots of amazing
Speaker 1: pictures of buffalo by some ibecks, horses and so and
Speaker 1: so forth. Why did they go so far to paint
Speaker 1: their pictures. It's because that's where the reverberation is at
Speaker 1: its most glorious. They went there to sing. It's been
Speaker 1: going on that long, you know. And that's not even
Speaker 1: an old cave. There are their their cave art examples
Speaker 1: going about forty and even sixty thousand years now, and
Speaker 1: it's highly likely that they were getting high and singing
Speaker 1: before they painted. Now, being an Englishman, what do you
Speaker 1: think about politics relative to music and the sixties? Certainly
Speaker 1: music drove the culture and now there's certainly a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff to sing about. How come we don't have
Speaker 1: that same the same type of music with the same impact. Well,
Speaker 1: that's probably because I mean, I think there are people
Speaker 1: writing interesting and pointed and songs of commentary and criticism,
Speaker 1: but they don't end up being in the charts in
Speaker 1: the way I mean. That was the amazing thing about
Speaker 1: the golden age of rock and roll was the bands
Speaker 1: that were our gods were also our cultural critics, and
Speaker 1: we sought out a rebellion through exactly what they did.
Speaker 1: And now people are playing it safe. There's also less
Speaker 1: of a culture of criticism. We don't know what's true
Speaker 1: anymore for a start, anyway, so it's difficult to put
Speaker 1: your finger on what it is that we want to say. Um,
Speaker 1: and so maybe maybe that's got something to do with it.
Speaker 1: But you're you're you're living in France, which is a
Speaker 1: nation of some level of turmoil, and certainly UK with
Speaker 1: Brexit they have some turmoil. What's that experience like? It's troubling,
Speaker 1: and of course we're all living on a planet which
Speaker 1: is presently doomed, so you know, choose your level of turmoil.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a worrying time. But I don't see
Speaker 1: the voice or hear the voices of both criticism and
Speaker 1: a call to arms from the world of music anymore
Speaker 1: like I used to. I'll read them on the internet,
Speaker 1: but I won't hear them in the songs. And so
Speaker 1: what is it like personally the arc of your life.
Speaker 1: You have this great success thirty odd years ago and
Speaker 1: now it's thirty years later. Does it Does it depress
Speaker 1: you that you have this great success then and now
Speaker 1: you're not as well known? No? No, no, um. I
Speaker 1: don't think that being well known was ever really something
Speaker 1: that I particularly bothered about. Was just a side effect.
Speaker 1: You know, you do end up kind of measuring your
Speaker 1: stats on by some of those metrics I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: chart positions and stuff. It's just an inherent in pop music.
Speaker 1: But that was never really what got me out of
Speaker 1: bed every morning. It was more about making music. What
Speaker 1: gets you out of bed today. Music. So if you're
Speaker 1: making music and it's only for a tiny audience, you
Speaker 1: feel like you're pushing the envelope. Everything is okay, Yes
Speaker 1: I have something to do. If there's an idea or
Speaker 1: thought of last night, and I'll wake up thing and
Speaker 1: right I'm going to do that today, then that keeps
Speaker 1: me going. And I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity,
Speaker 1: which I think to some extent I probably earned. But
Speaker 1: it just turned out that way, you know, So what
Speaker 1: can I say? It's a it's an odd situation to
Speaker 1: be describing. But I know people whose careers didn't wane
Speaker 1: in the same way as mine, and others who's have
Speaker 1: disappeared and tiny without any trace, you know. So I'm
Speaker 1: just lucky to be doing what I'm doing. Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't hear any negative negativity. Are you just that up
Speaker 1: a person? Are we just not hearing you know? I
Speaker 1: think we're all the position of choosing whether we want
Speaker 1: to complain about our lives or actually get on with
Speaker 1: the good things. Don't you think it is to some
Speaker 1: extent or choice. All there is is what happens and
Speaker 1: then how we feel about it. So we can't change
Speaker 1: what happens, but we can change what we feel about it.
Speaker 1: But also we can decide to what degree we want
Speaker 1: to engage. Well, all of us should engage a hundred
Speaker 1: percent with everything. There's no debate about that in my mind. Well, today,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people sit at home and
Speaker 1: they engage with Netflix, which is not the same thing.
Speaker 1: We had to go to clubs, We had to get
Speaker 1: out of the house. I think it was also part
Speaker 1: of the whole excitement. I'm a terrible example of someone
Speaker 1: who I don't really engage with culture directly like that.
Speaker 1: I don't have a TV set, I don't have Netflix account.
Speaker 1: I guess I have on mobile phone. And that's about
Speaker 1: us far us I make. I make music with computers,
Speaker 1: you know, which is a kind of strange admission. But
Speaker 1: other than that, I just wonder crashing into one lamp
Speaker 1: post after another. So when you're not making music, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? That doesn't leave much time? Actually? Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're still as driven as you once were. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's been consistent for the last forty years. And
Speaker 1: I think part of it is having several projects. So
Speaker 1: when I finished with pop music, I go to International
Speaker 1: Observer my dub thing, or meet with the Indian musicians
Speaker 1: and write with them or whatever. So other than that,
Speaker 1: when I go back to France, I have a garden,
Speaker 1: you know, I sit in the garden. I think this
Speaker 1: is great for a few weeks, and then then I
Speaker 1: get edgy face. I want to go touring again. Okay,
Speaker 1: you now, I mean your manager should sent me a
Speaker 1: video where you are performing with three women, everybody wearing white.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, how long has that been? The paradigm, the
Speaker 1: Women or the White. When I decided I was gonna
Speaker 1: get back into touring the pop music again, I got
Speaker 1: in touch with my old drummer, Jeff Dougma, and he said, yes, sure,
Speaker 1: I'd love to do that up. And then he's incredibly
Speaker 1: big in some kind of heavy metal band in Japan
Speaker 1: or something and had a stadium gig coming up, and
Speaker 1: so he had to drop out of my tour and
Speaker 1: he said, but never mind, I've got this this person
Speaker 1: in mind for you, And it turned out to be
Speaker 1: Emily Dolan Davis, a female drummer um and then a
Speaker 1: keyboard player, Amanda Kramer from from the Psychedelic First she
Speaker 1: came along and wanted to work with me, and then
Speaker 1: another and we thought, this is turning into an all
Speaker 1: female band. Why fight it? And then I discovered, hey,
Speaker 1: it's actually something really nice about the group dynamics of
Speaker 1: women working together as opposed to the kind of tired,
Speaker 1: old male rock and roll cliches that happened on the bus,
Speaker 1: you know, two weeks into any tour. So I've just
Speaker 1: developed an affection for working with women. And also for
Speaker 1: the first two years we wore black and then one
Speaker 1: a I thought, if we have to go on in
Speaker 1: the afternoon or look at some festival or there's no
Speaker 1: follow spot or something, people at the back of why
Speaker 1: don't we wear white and they'll see us? And it works.
Speaker 1: Certainly we're white at night too. Yes, okay. There was
Speaker 1: a video of this video that You're me and Andrew said,
Speaker 1: and everybody is singing along to the song will me now?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. But also it seemed like
Speaker 1: some of the audience was young. Well, they either another
Speaker 1: song from radio or their parents have forced it upon them,
Speaker 1: they've heard it at home. I don't know what what
Speaker 1: is this, because otherwise you'd have to seek out that.
Speaker 1: But isn't that true of the younger generation these days,
Speaker 1: is that their taste chronologically is wide and incredibly. I mean,
Speaker 1: my kids listened to the latest pop music and like
Speaker 1: early blues recordings side by side and everything in between.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the one brilliant thing about the
Speaker 1: Internet and music is that it's put at their disposal,
Speaker 1: at the touch of the button, every single piece of
Speaker 1: recorded music. And that's incredible thing, so much that you
Speaker 1: can't possibly listen to it all before you die, which
Speaker 1: we never had, and we would, you know, spend a
Speaker 1: long time traveling to dingy records stores and going through
Speaker 1: crates in order to maybe find the thing we were
Speaker 1: looking for and often failing. So now it's so easy,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, So maybe maybe that's the way they
Speaker 1: find it. I don't know, or do they hearken back
Speaker 1: because they can feel that excitement that they don't get
Speaker 1: in today's pop music. Oh, I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: competing with today's pop music in that sense directly. Some
Speaker 1: people just go to festivals because they like music and
Speaker 1: they listen to anything. Um. I hope it's because they've
Speaker 1: in some way heard it and think it's nice and
Speaker 1: I want to hear more. So what's the charge? I mean,
Speaker 1: there must be an amazing charge being on stage and
Speaker 1: experiencing that. Yeah, you have no idea, man, it's it's
Speaker 1: the one thing that I'm addicted to, really, is that
Speaker 1: emotional contact when when the crowd starts singing your song
Speaker 1: and you realize, you know what my job has done.
Speaker 1: It's over to you guys. Um. It makes me deeply
Speaker 1: happy and it kind of reverberates back through the ages.
Speaker 1: As I said, there's a contact with something that we
Speaker 1: did a long time ago, and that kind of nostalgia
Speaker 1: for me, it's not the kind of vacuous living in
Speaker 1: the past nostalgia, but there's something very present. And it
Speaker 1: also gives me the feeling that the optimism which we
Speaker 1: still felt in the eighties about the world in general
Speaker 1: hasn't died totally. And it's been through some hard times,
Speaker 1: but it hasn't died totally. Well, if you say you
Speaker 1: live for that hit on stage, how do you feel
Speaker 1: about the thirty years you weren't on stage? Believe in me,
Speaker 1: I was totally happy not to be doing it. I
Speaker 1: was doing other things and looking elsewhere. But I must
Speaker 1: also admit that sometimes I think, why did I wait?
Speaker 1: So I could have been having fun all this time,
Speaker 1: you know, with this particular thing. But it wasn't that
Speaker 1: I wasn't enjoying what I was doing. So it's in
Speaker 1: a way it's a kind of an old question. Well,
Speaker 1: I can wriggle out of that one in my own mind.
Speaker 1: On that note, we've been talking to Tom Bailey of
Speaker 1: the Toms and Twins, touring multiple dates around the world now, Tom,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for me on the podcast. It's an
Speaker 1: absolute pleasure.