Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Howard Jones. How are good to
Speaker 1: be talking with you? Well, thank you so much, Bob.
Speaker 1: It's very nice to be talking with you. Okay, people
Speaker 1: can't see this, but you're wearing a sweater that says
Speaker 1: nine thirty. What's that about? Um? Well, I I recently
Speaker 1: played the nine thirty Club in Washington and I've been
Speaker 1: wanting to play there for so long. They for some
Speaker 1: reason could never get me fit me in um and
Speaker 1: so I wanted to get some and they gave us
Speaker 1: some merch at the end of the night. So it's
Speaker 1: a really comfy one. So are you the type of
Speaker 1: person who you know? Bill Wyman was the Stalls, was
Speaker 1: a famous collector. He's still with us, but he sold
Speaker 1: some of his stuff. Do you keep all them? Because
Speaker 1: you know, promoters are legendary for giving gifts to performers.
Speaker 1: You still have all that stuff? Um? No? I mean
Speaker 1: this was a very special thing for me because I
Speaker 1: normally I don't I wouldn't take any kind of merch
Speaker 1: from the gig, but I just thought it was very cool.
Speaker 1: It's black and I've always wanted to play there, and
Speaker 1: everybody asked me what that means. So actually there was
Speaker 1: one of the few venues where well they actually did
Speaker 1: a baby merch and one of our one of our
Speaker 1: crew members has recently had a young baby and my
Speaker 1: wife Jan bought some baby merch that we got some
Speaker 1: pictures back today with the nine thirty logo on it. Okay,
Speaker 1: so how extensive is your merch that you sell at
Speaker 1: a gig. Well, we always like to sell music because
Speaker 1: you know, that's the most important thing to me. So
Speaker 1: so they'll always be like the you c d s
Speaker 1: and vinyl if we've got it, um and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of great T shirts, but it's really important
Speaker 1: to have the music there. And uh do you personally
Speaker 1: choose the T shirt or as somebody else do that?
Speaker 1: And no, no, I get I do get involved. And yeah,
Speaker 1: we we we always spend a lot of time working
Speaker 1: on you know, what the designs are going to be.
Speaker 1: Are they going to be related to the album or
Speaker 1: to the live show or or just an abstract you
Speaker 1: know design. So yeah, we spend we spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time. So if I go to the gig, I've
Speaker 1: seen you, but not recently. I saw you at the
Speaker 1: House of Blues in l A. I believe it was
Speaker 1: about twenty years ago, but um, yeah, I don't remember
Speaker 1: the merge there. But if I go to your gig today,
Speaker 1: are you going to be at the merge table? Am
Speaker 1: I going to get to meet you? No? Do we do?
Speaker 1: We do a meet and greet before the show. Now.
Speaker 1: I used to go out to the table, but I
Speaker 1: found it difficult because it was lovely meeting the fans,
Speaker 1: but there was quite a lot of drunk people and
Speaker 1: they were trying to grab me. So my view has
Speaker 1: been like, it's much nicer to have some sort of
Speaker 1: dignified greeting with people and be able to spend some
Speaker 1: time with them and chat properly. So we do that
Speaker 1: before the shows. Yeah, so you have these meet and greets,
Speaker 1: do you tend to know personally you're hardcore fans. I
Speaker 1: do recognize quite a few of them, Yes, and it's
Speaker 1: it's it's very it's lovely actually too to catch up
Speaker 1: with them, and you know, have this history that goes
Speaker 1: back you know, maybe you know thirty or forty years now.
Speaker 1: I don't know all of them, but they you know,
Speaker 1: they will um, they will make themselves known to me.
Speaker 1: You know, they've written something to me on Twitter or
Speaker 1: something like that. You know, people can eat you know,
Speaker 1: they can get holding me through email if they try
Speaker 1: hard enough. And I try and do one reply a day. Um,
Speaker 1: because I can't reply to all of them, but I
Speaker 1: choose one and at least one person is happy. You
Speaker 1: know how many people reach out in a day? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: because I don't reply all the time, I probably get
Speaker 1: about four or five emails a day. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: assume they have to be pretty good sleuth. I mean,
Speaker 1: your email address is not that readily available, correct, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. They have to work out. That's a kid.
Speaker 1: Let's let's go back to the point of vinyl. If
Speaker 1: I go to a gig, you you mentioned the vinyl
Speaker 1: may or may not be always available. Do you have
Speaker 1: vinyl from every album or do you have specialized product
Speaker 1: for the tour? What do you got? Um? Well, usually
Speaker 1: the tour is is associated with an album, but not always. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, vinyl is so hard to get made now,
Speaker 1: so there's usually this big lag. You know that the
Speaker 1: CDs are really quick to make, but everybody wants final
Speaker 1: so it's taking us like six or seven months to
Speaker 1: actually get the vinyl done. I was very skeptical about
Speaker 1: releasing it on violent. I thought, I thought, we've got,
Speaker 1: you know, got away from that, you know, a medium
Speaker 1: that's that's got built in noise, you know. I I
Speaker 1: it's not the way that I meant it to be
Speaker 1: when I'm working in the studio. However, I have become
Speaker 1: a convert to this sound and there's something about vinyl.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to sort of put your finger on it,
Speaker 1: but it's it's you know, it's got a great sound.
Speaker 1: It's not the sound that we originally we're hearing when
Speaker 1: we mix the record, but it's got another sort of
Speaker 1: level of I don't know, nostalgic associated with it that
Speaker 1: really I think it's nice on the ear. I think
Speaker 1: it's something to do with the the sound waves being
Speaker 1: rounded off by the process of making the vinyl. So
Speaker 1: I've become a convert. And now we do vinyl for everything.
Speaker 1: And you know, Cherry Red handle my early catalog and
Speaker 1: they're constantly putting out vinyl to go with things that
Speaker 1: people have never been able to get on viol and
Speaker 1: they absolutely love it. So you know, got to go
Speaker 1: with the fans. That's what they want. Okay, what kind
Speaker 1: of mic are you using there? I'm using an appert microphone.
Speaker 1: But the reaon I mentioned is I'm usually the identical mic.
Speaker 1: I could just see. How did you end up with
Speaker 1: the Hide mic club? Well, you know, I've been a
Speaker 1: I've been a friend of Bob Clear Mountains for thirty
Speaker 1: five years and Betty, of course I've known her for
Speaker 1: even longer, and she runs the company. And so I
Speaker 1: got this nice little present one day, which and I
Speaker 1: think it's a great sounding mike, isn't it. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: The analog compression is one of the great features. Yeah, wonderful. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the vinyl thing for a second.
Speaker 1: So you cut digitally, now, how far back in the
Speaker 1: beginning we're gonna like the humans lib was that kind
Speaker 1: of analager digital? Now that was recorded onto multi track analog?
Speaker 1: Although you know we were using UM sampling you know, well,
Speaker 1: I say primitive, but I mean it was. It was
Speaker 1: good quality, but it was it only had like a
Speaker 1: maximum of nine seconds that you could you could you
Speaker 1: could um you could actually sample. So so although we
Speaker 1: were recording to analog, we were using UM. You know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of up to nine second seconds of sampling,
Speaker 1: which was good for like snare drum samples, based drum
Speaker 1: samples and sometimes a bit of vocal stuff to fly
Speaker 1: around you know, the tape. But yeah, it was it
Speaker 1: was human slop and dream interaction actually were recorded onto
Speaker 1: onto multi track tape. Okay, a little bit slower. Okay,
Speaker 1: why is there? You know we have analog tape that
Speaker 1: runs you know, fifteen or thirty i p s. When
Speaker 1: you say you can only use nine seconds, explain a
Speaker 1: little deeper what you mean. Yeah, well, it was the
Speaker 1: it was the very early days of digital sampling. So
Speaker 1: so this was before you know, you had like Aki
Speaker 1: sound samplers and fair lights and things like that. So
Speaker 1: in the studio we had a box I'm trying to
Speaker 1: remember the name of it now, and Rupert Hine and
Speaker 1: Steve Taylor were you know, early adopters of of this
Speaker 1: of this of this technology, and so they could root
Speaker 1: anything that was being recorded on a desk through to
Speaker 1: the sample. And so for instance, you know, I would
Speaker 1: run my drum machines. But we we thought, well we'd
Speaker 1: like a better a better snare sound, or a better
Speaker 1: bass drum sound, and so we would be able to
Speaker 1: trigger this this sampler, um, you know from my drum machine,
Speaker 1: uh inputs to to actually get you a better sound
Speaker 1: through it? Or does that does that sound? Does that
Speaker 1: make sense? Well? I think that about for the amateur
Speaker 1: one can understand a fifties sevent But let's go back
Speaker 1: to the beginning. So when did you start to play
Speaker 1: a musical instrument? Um? Well, I started around with seven.
Speaker 1: My My parents were Welsh. They both spoke Welsh and
Speaker 1: so in Wales. You know, they grew up in Wales
Speaker 1: and everyone sings and everyone is interested in music. So
Speaker 1: it was really important for them to for for for
Speaker 1: their kids to be able to play an instrument. And
Speaker 1: I was the firstborn and so you know, they got
Speaker 1: me piano lessons when I was seven. Um. I absolutely
Speaker 1: hated it at the beginning. I didn't have a very
Speaker 1: inspiring teacher, but they encouraged me to keep going and
Speaker 1: I sort of, you know, ground away at it. I
Speaker 1: got to nine years old and my mother always used
Speaker 1: to have the radio on. So at nine years old,
Speaker 1: I I heard this song that I'd seen on TV
Speaker 1: as well, um, and it was the winner of the
Speaker 1: Eurovision Song Contests. It was a song called Puppet on
Speaker 1: a String by Sandy Shaw, and I heard it on
Speaker 1: the radio and I went to the piano and I
Speaker 1: worked out the tune and how to harm anize it,
Speaker 1: and I thought, and that was like this massive turning
Speaker 1: point for me, um that you know, oh, I can
Speaker 1: hear tunes and I can bring them to the piano
Speaker 1: and start, you know, playing playing them and trying to
Speaker 1: get the chords right as well. So so from that
Speaker 1: moment on, I was very obsessed, unhealthily obsessed person with
Speaker 1: the piano. And you couldn't keep me away from it.
Speaker 1: And you know, I should have spent a lot more
Speaker 1: time out playing football with my friends and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but I was in there banging away on the piano.
Speaker 1: But of course, you know, I guess it paid off
Speaker 1: in the end. It certainly did. But let's okay, you're
Speaker 1: playing the piano. It's an analog instrument, and you came
Speaker 1: of age with all these digital innovations, etcetera. When did
Speaker 1: you start experimenting with since and drum machines, ettera. And
Speaker 1: what was the interpiration? Yeah, well, there's a few things.
Speaker 1: And when I when I think back, I mean the
Speaker 1: first band I was in It was a band called Warrior,
Speaker 1: and this was when I was still at school, and
Speaker 1: the drummer in the band was a bit of a
Speaker 1: a kind of electronics whiz, and he actually made me
Speaker 1: a synthesizer from from a kit that they had um
Speaker 1: they'd had in an electronics magazine. I can't remember the
Speaker 1: name of it, but he actually made me a one
Speaker 1: oscillators synthesizer that I could play, you know, in the band.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, what, wow, this is amazing.
Speaker 1: And I'd seen Keith Emerson at the Island White Festival
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy when I was I was too young
Speaker 1: to be there, but I managed to call my parents
Speaker 1: into letting me go and saw Emerson with his huge
Speaker 1: Moog modula and the sounds that were coming out of it.
Speaker 1: It's just absolutely blew my mind. And I kind of
Speaker 1: that was it. Really, that was the turning point. I
Speaker 1: think I wanted to be involved in this new way
Speaker 1: of making sounds and this exciting way of of generating sound,
Speaker 1: you know, and being a keyboard player that was gonna,
Speaker 1: you know what, I could eventually start to afford anything
Speaker 1: resembling what Keith had um, you know, I would be
Speaker 1: i'd be there. I used to hang out at the
Speaker 1: local Hammond Organ's shop in high Wycomb on on a
Speaker 1: Saturday afternoon and sort of go in there and they
Speaker 1: kindly let me mess around on the on the Hammonds
Speaker 1: and so that was a huge thing for me. I
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly afford one of those instruments, so my my
Speaker 1: parents got me a Larry Heritage um which which they
Speaker 1: got on HP and then we borrowed a Leslie from
Speaker 1: the drummers parents house and we used to take it
Speaker 1: round to gigs. Can you imagine this beautiful piece of
Speaker 1: burning so that's meant to be in the home and
Speaker 1: we carted it around, you know, all these horrible little
Speaker 1: gigs that we that we were playing at the time.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that was me and my obsession with keyboards. Really. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back, so at age seven you start playing
Speaker 1: the piano. How old are you when you get infected
Speaker 1: by the cnd Shaw song? I think I was. I
Speaker 1: was nine or eleven or something like that around that time, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think. And then when did you start playing in
Speaker 1: being to start working with people live? Yeah, um, well
Speaker 1: I think I played in my very first band. I
Speaker 1: was in Canada because my parents had emigrated to Canada
Speaker 1: twice in fact, and they came back twice. So the
Speaker 1: second time we were out there, I was at high
Speaker 1: school and I was invited to be in a band
Speaker 1: and they got hold of a fox Continental for me
Speaker 1: to play, and I played some covers like how So
Speaker 1: the Rising Sun by the Animals and just one or
Speaker 1: two gigs before my parents decided to move back to
Speaker 1: the UK. So, um, it was really that that. That
Speaker 1: was the first time I ever sort of played with with,
Speaker 1: you know, other electric musicians. Okay, just hold one second there.
Speaker 1: How did they know that you played? Were you like
Speaker 1: known as the piano guy? Well, yeah, that's a good,
Speaker 1: good question. I during lunchtimes, during my lunch break at
Speaker 1: the high school, I used to get used to go
Speaker 1: into one of the classrooms where they had a piano
Speaker 1: and start playing, you know, because that's my thing, and
Speaker 1: an audience would gather around and that's how they got
Speaker 1: to know. Um, it became a bit of a thing
Speaker 1: and you would play. Did you also sing at the time. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't sing at the time because I never thought
Speaker 1: of myself as a singer, although I sang as a
Speaker 1: child and my parents were both singers, not professionally even
Speaker 1: you know, because they loved singing. Um. There was always
Speaker 1: music and I used to we used to do Beach
Speaker 1: Boys covers my my brothers and I had three brothers
Speaker 1: and we used to do that, you know, do our
Speaker 1: best with it with with Beach Boys harmonies when we
Speaker 1: were really young, when we didn't have any instruments. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I did sing any behind. It was
Speaker 1: never on my radar to be the singer, you know.
Speaker 1: That sort of came much later. Okay, let's go back
Speaker 1: to the Beach Boys. Were you singing the Beach Boys
Speaker 1: when you were in Wales? Yes, yes, you know. One
Speaker 1: of the things about our childhood was that I don't
Speaker 1: know what if the tradition is still there now, but
Speaker 1: when we used to visit our grandparents and our uncles
Speaker 1: and aunties, we it was kind of expected that you
Speaker 1: would do you were, you would do a performance. You know,
Speaker 1: they would usually have a piano, so I would play
Speaker 1: the piano and then my brothers would join with me
Speaker 1: and and sing harmonies together. So it was you know,
Speaker 1: you kind of it was performing as a natural way
Speaker 1: of life really, so I kind of think that's the
Speaker 1: way it should be, really it. I love that organic,
Speaker 1: the way that music is just part of life and
Speaker 1: you you learn how to sing, you learn how to play,
Speaker 1: and then you go around to somebody's house and you
Speaker 1: and you do it for them, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: it's kind of got blown out of all proportion now,
Speaker 1: you know, big stages and stadiums and things like that,
Speaker 1: but that's that's the way it was originally. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: you would just gathered together and listen to somebody play
Speaker 1: or listen to somebody sing. Okay, were you a big
Speaker 1: beach boy? You know? Um, I was at that age.
Speaker 1: We we were. We were hearing the the um you know,
Speaker 1: the surf era of the of the beach brobs. So
Speaker 1: you know, on the beach we used to sing um
Speaker 1: good vibrations. I don't think we were quite up to
Speaker 1: up to doing that. But it was much later that
Speaker 1: I in my life that I realized the genius uh
Speaker 1: you know of other beach boys and I was, I was.
Speaker 1: I was a late comer. I was a late coming
Speaker 1: to it, but once I got there, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, this is just so great. Yeah, but what's it?
Speaker 1: What's it like being in Wales listening to surf music.
Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up in the East Coast of
Speaker 1: American Connecticut and I would hear the songs from California.
Speaker 1: Sounded like a dream. I wanted to go out there,
Speaker 1: being the surfing culture. But you were in Whales. So
Speaker 1: what were these songs meaning to you? Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: guess you know, it's not so far off really well,
Speaker 1: because well, as you know, you think, Wales is a
Speaker 1: land of song and choirs are everywhere. I remember when
Speaker 1: I was living in Cardiff, I went I used to
Speaker 1: go to a local church where they had concerts on
Speaker 1: and there would be like the Morriston Orpheous Choir there,
Speaker 1: you know, hundred piece male voice choir singing, and it
Speaker 1: just was just part of you know, I didn't you didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't think anything of it at the time. I
Speaker 1: realized now how amazing that it was to have that
Speaker 1: input into my life. Um, and you know, singing was
Speaker 1: was you know, if you go to a football match
Speaker 1: or a rugby match, always the Welsh quiet um. You know,
Speaker 1: crowds sing so beautifully. They're not only saying that, they
Speaker 1: harmonized as well. It's a kind of natural ability and
Speaker 1: so hearing the Beach Boys. Really, I guess was oh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know that's them doing it. But you know in
Speaker 1: the Sunshine in California. Okay, So you were born in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five the Beatles hit in the UK and
Speaker 1: sixty two in American sixty four. Were you conscious of
Speaker 1: the arrival of the Beatles. Oh yeah, I absolutely was.
Speaker 1: I mean my mother listened to the radio all the time,
Speaker 1: so that's what we were hearing all of that. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, coming through the radio, and the Beatles were
Speaker 1: huge in our family and in my life. Um and
Speaker 1: this you know, way before I could I had a
Speaker 1: record player or I could afford to buy a record. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it was yeah, massive, massive influence. But but
Speaker 1: all the all all those sixties contemporaries of the Beatles
Speaker 1: as well, you know, Freddie and the Dreamers and the Tremolos,
Speaker 1: and you know, I I'd be hearing it, you know,
Speaker 1: constantly and getting very excited. And I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: my mother was a keen radio listener, you know, so
Speaker 1: because we didn't have any other means of recorded music
Speaker 1: in the house. Um, so coming through the radio was
Speaker 1: a big deal. Okay, Needles just say, there was music
Speaker 1: before the Beatles, but in the US was palpable. There
Speaker 1: was a youth quake, as they put it. Everything blew up.
Speaker 1: There was the Beatles, There was a British invasion and
Speaker 1: ultimately the San Francisco scene in psychedelia, which uh UK
Speaker 1: had a huge part of. There was traffic, etcetera. Was
Speaker 1: that just music or could you feel that it was
Speaker 1: really a scene? Into what degree were you dedicated to it? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: I I think I was probably too young to be
Speaker 1: being able to acknowledge any kind of scene, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? You know that you don't have any
Speaker 1: previous with it, you know, you don't you don't have
Speaker 1: any historical references before that. And but it felt to
Speaker 1: me like the Beatles were young men, you know, not
Speaker 1: that much older than than you, that were like living
Speaker 1: through history and reflecting the changes in society with their
Speaker 1: music and with the clothes they wore, and the and
Speaker 1: the films they made and the album artwork and the
Speaker 1: clips that we used to see on you know on
Speaker 1: the TV um you know when they when they when
Speaker 1: they recorded you know, what is all you need is love?
Speaker 1: You know? I was remember watching it on the on
Speaker 1: the TV Live as they were doing it, and it's like,
Speaker 1: it's the most exciting thing you could ever imagine. So
Speaker 1: it was. It was amazing actually when you think about it.
Speaker 1: When I think about it, to grow up with them
Speaker 1: and and their development, and you know, the influence they
Speaker 1: had on me and my my schoolmates and everything like that,
Speaker 1: you know, wearing loon pants and you know, going down
Speaker 1: to Carnival Street to buy clothes and you know, it
Speaker 1: was like it was so massive. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: I guess looking back on it, you realize that massive impact. Um.
Speaker 1: At the time, you know, you don't really have any
Speaker 1: reference bot you just think, oh wow, music is the
Speaker 1: most exciting thing ever in the world, and these guys
Speaker 1: are the best at doing it. Um. You know. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, the funny thing is, if you're in the UK,
Speaker 1: people tend to look down on Liverpool, Lions and Scousers.
Speaker 1: What was that like? Was there any fascination with Liverpool,
Speaker 1: the fact that the ban came from there another band?
Speaker 1: You know, because I hadn't really traveled very much around
Speaker 1: my own country. I mean, I've been to Canada twice
Speaker 1: and I think one of the one of the times
Speaker 1: we actually sailed from Liverpool, you know, because we went
Speaker 1: by boat. But I never sort of thought of it
Speaker 1: as geographic guard. Just always thought of it as they
Speaker 1: were in our country, they were of our country. I
Speaker 1: didn't even think about Liverpool or accents. It was just
Speaker 1: you know, the the the British and yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't analyze it any further than that. Do you
Speaker 1: speak Welsh? I can? I can pronounce Welsh and I can.
Speaker 1: I can. I can read it and and and and
Speaker 1: pronounce it. I can sing in Welsh, but I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. My parents, my parents spoke Welsh
Speaker 1: at home, but they didn't teach us because they wanted
Speaker 1: to keep a secret language. Actually that was one thing
Speaker 1: that was one payoff of it. But the main reason
Speaker 1: was they thought having to language with languages would be
Speaker 1: an impediment for us. And of course we know now
Speaker 1: it's really good to learn more than a language when
Speaker 1: you're young, but we they they held that back from us. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And what was their history? Were they always you know,
Speaker 1: long lineage and uh Wales or what did they do
Speaker 1: for a living? Yeah? Well, my mother was was was
Speaker 1: born in Swansea in a very very working class family.
Speaker 1: They lived in a tiny house. She had like six brothers.
Speaker 1: She was the youngest and the only girl in the family.
Speaker 1: And her father worked in the in the local toy
Speaker 1: factory in uh, you know, it was a factory worker
Speaker 1: down in dan in Swansea. My father came from a
Speaker 1: farming background, parents very so poor that they had to
Speaker 1: send him to live with his grandparents because they couldn't
Speaker 1: afford to keep him at home with the other two
Speaker 1: children that they had. So so my father was brought
Speaker 1: up by his grandparents and they were very keen for
Speaker 1: him to do well, you know, with his with his
Speaker 1: with his studies, and he and he and he did
Speaker 1: very well at school and he ended up going to
Speaker 1: university and going to university in Swansea, and that's how
Speaker 1: he met my mother. And so my father, from a
Speaker 1: very poor background, ended up with a good education. And
Speaker 1: my mother was a very wonderful, wonderful, wonderful woman, just
Speaker 1: full of love for everyone, and everyone loved her and
Speaker 1: so she she they made a great team, you know,
Speaker 1: they uh. And my mother was very ambitious for her
Speaker 1: children and did everything she could to help us get on,
Speaker 1: you know. And what did your father do for a living.
Speaker 1: He was He was trained as an electrical engineer and
Speaker 1: he did various um jobs during his life. He taught
Speaker 1: a college UM. He was involved with computers when he
Speaker 1: when he came to Canada and worked for the government
Speaker 1: on computer programs UM and then when he came back
Speaker 1: to the UK, he was a teacher and math teacher,
Speaker 1: and then when he retired he helped my mom run
Speaker 1: off fan club. So yeah, so were you addicted to
Speaker 1: the radio. Your mother was listening, but we were listening
Speaker 1: to Radio Luxembourg Radio Caroline. Absolutely, yes, I was. My
Speaker 1: My father bought me a little transistor radio and he
Speaker 1: had one of those little ear pieces. I used to
Speaker 1: fall asleep listening to Pirate radio and I used to
Speaker 1: go in and out of phase and it was a massive,
Speaker 1: you know, thrill, and it felt like almost clandestine to
Speaker 1: be there, you know, in your bed when you should
Speaker 1: be asleep, but your yours. You've got your little transistor
Speaker 1: tucked under the pillow, and you're listen. You're listening to
Speaker 1: all this great music, you know. And what kind of
Speaker 1: student were you? Um? Well, I I think I was.
Speaker 1: I was very competitive. I I I wanted to be
Speaker 1: top the class when I was young and then something
Speaker 1: happened when I came back from Canada the second time,
Speaker 1: I kind of lost interest in school and I started
Speaker 1: to become a little bit of a disruptive person in
Speaker 1: the class. And you know, I wasn't big and sporty
Speaker 1: or anything, but for some reason, the kids used to
Speaker 1: sort of look up to me, so if I did something,
Speaker 1: they would also of like join in with me. I
Speaker 1: feel terrible now we did some terrible things to the teachers. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean it just didn't hold hold my
Speaker 1: own dress any more, you know, the work. And so
Speaker 1: that's when music really took over. And that's something that
Speaker 1: could get so excited about and could put like massive
Speaker 1: amounts of energy and time into. And you know, I
Speaker 1: studied classical piano lessons. I I got to grade eight,
Speaker 1: which is the highest grade you you know, you get
Speaker 1: in the UK. And then you know, I was four
Speaker 1: hours a day practicing. You know. It was I don't
Speaker 1: recommend it, but I just it was one of those
Speaker 1: things I had to do. I just had to do it.
Speaker 1: And what did your parents say, Well, they just encouraged me. Really.
Speaker 1: I mean, although I was one of those kids that
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know, almost like had a built
Speaker 1: an agenda from the from a very young age. I mean,
Speaker 1: we came back from Canada two highway come and you know,
Speaker 1: I had no friends. I had to leave all all
Speaker 1: everything I was had going there, you know. I just
Speaker 1: joined the band, had a girlfriend, and it literally got
Speaker 1: ripped away. And I came home and we didn't even
Speaker 1: have a piano. And I said to my mom and dad,
Speaker 1: I said, if you don't get me a piano, I
Speaker 1: will die, you know. And I mean, and in a way,
Speaker 1: I know that sounds very dramatic, but but actually it
Speaker 1: was true. It was there was a part of me
Speaker 1: that would that would wither away, you know. And bless them,
Speaker 1: they the very next weekend they went to Oxford and
Speaker 1: found this piano. I think it cost a hundred pounds
Speaker 1: and they got a high purchase agreement on it and
Speaker 1: it was delivered by monday, you know. And you know
Speaker 1: it's a quite an old piano. But it did the
Speaker 1: job for me, you know, and I'm always so grateful
Speaker 1: for them for that, you know, because they did. They
Speaker 1: really they really responded to my my despair. Okay, how
Speaker 1: old were you when you went to Canada both times?
Speaker 1: And what were your parents motivation to go to Canada
Speaker 1: and come back. Um, well, I was nine when we
Speaker 1: went first first of all, and I came back when
Speaker 1: we were eleven, and then we uh, then we left
Speaker 1: again when I was about twelve and a half to
Speaker 1: go to Canada and came back when I was fourteen.
Speaker 1: So the motivation was, you know, my father was he
Speaker 1: was restless, and he wasn't happy doing the job he
Speaker 1: was doing, and he saw Canada as a real chance
Speaker 1: for something new, and he took the brave decision, you know,
Speaker 1: to take the whole family. And I mean there was
Speaker 1: four kids, m and he went out first, and then
Speaker 1: we followed on the on the boat, you know, and
Speaker 1: then of course he he felt the same. Then when
Speaker 1: he got to Canada, he wasn't happy there, so he
Speaker 1: come back, he wasn't happy again, and you know, we
Speaker 1: went out again. So you know, at the time, I
Speaker 1: suppose I I was angry with him because you know,
Speaker 1: he was taking me away from all the things that
Speaker 1: that I loved and then my friends. And but now
Speaker 1: I think to myself, well, he's very made these bold decisions,
Speaker 1: you know, to do monumental you know, disruption to the family.
Speaker 1: But he did it, you know, and I I am,
Speaker 1: I can't you know? It was it was it was
Speaker 1: kind of the making of me in a way. I
Speaker 1: had to be independent and not rely on um others
Speaker 1: to keep myself in a good place. Okay, so you're
Speaker 1: playing a band for a couple of dates Canada, you
Speaker 1: come back. What's how do you get a girlfriend so fast?
Speaker 1: And what's the next step in your musical career? Well?
Speaker 1: So okay, So so I'm back in the UK. My
Speaker 1: parents get me the piano and it's really then, um
Speaker 1: that I start to you know, I get really into music,
Speaker 1: and and people were trading albums at school, you know,
Speaker 1: Vil of course, and bands like Broke oharam Um, you
Speaker 1: know led Zeppelin and um, you know the Beatles and Stones,
Speaker 1: and so I was, I was. I was always looking
Speaker 1: at to go to shows and gigs and in high
Speaker 1: Wick and there's a place where the high weakn Town
Speaker 1: Hall where they had lots of bands playing. And there
Speaker 1: was a place in Aylesbury Friars where even more exciting
Speaker 1: bands used to play. So I'd be I'd be doing that.
Speaker 1: And then I met an American guy who was at
Speaker 1: the school I was in, and he played guitar, and
Speaker 1: it was very keen to former band. And he had
Speaker 1: a house that had a facility for us to be
Speaker 1: able to room, for us to be able to you know,
Speaker 1: to to to play. So I used to take a
Speaker 1: long bus journey every Sunday down to his house and
Speaker 1: we UM and I had a Honer pianet, which is
Speaker 1: a kind of you know, a keyboard with pickups inside.
Speaker 1: I used to put it through a vox a C
Speaker 1: thirty am and I used to use a wid Wi
Speaker 1: pedal with it and distortion and I could actually get
Speaker 1: it to sound pretty much like a you know, highly
Speaker 1: amplified guitar at some some sometimes. And so we had
Speaker 1: just a whale of a time doing this music. I
Speaker 1: was writing this ridiculously complicated music that lasted twenty minutes
Speaker 1: and it took forever for the other members of the
Speaker 1: band to learn. But bless them, you know, they did.
Speaker 1: They kind of enjoyed it, and so I I was.
Speaker 1: It was entirely instrumental um. And we played youth clubs
Speaker 1: and we played local halls, and we actually played in
Speaker 1: our school, and you know, it was like so exciting.
Speaker 1: It's like the most exciting thing you could ever do.
Speaker 1: How could I ever want to do anything else? You know,
Speaker 1: it was it was just it was brilliant. Okay. So
Speaker 1: do you read music? Yes, yeah, okay, you have lessons?
Speaker 1: When you were playing four hours a day, were you
Speaker 1: also taking lessons? Yes, yes, oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: and doing the exams, you know, the music exams. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And at what point do you start to sing? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't until much later that I started
Speaker 1: to sing because although although now that's really interesting you've
Speaker 1: asked that, because with the band that the band warrior
Speaker 1: Um evolved to get more sort of older musicians because
Speaker 1: my friend, my American friend, left to go back to America,
Speaker 1: and so there was a singer in the band, and
Speaker 1: I knew a poet who wrote these very verbose poems
Speaker 1: that basically were pros. They didn't have a rhyming meter
Speaker 1: in them at all. But yet I set them to
Speaker 1: music and it was so difficult, and I always think
Speaker 1: that really helped me to develop my own style of
Speaker 1: you know, setting words to music. So I would I
Speaker 1: would write the vocal melodies for the singer in the
Speaker 1: band and um, but never thought of myself as a singer.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a keyboard player. I'm I'm Keith Emison,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's who I want to be. UM.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't mutually. I you know, went to music
Speaker 1: college UM and did two and a half years studying
Speaker 1: now you know, with a great piano teacher, and then
Speaker 1: came home and there wasn't anybody around who could sing
Speaker 1: my my stuff. So I thought, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to do this. I'm gonna have to sing. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna have to do it. I'm just gonna have to
Speaker 1: bite the bullet. And I never thought of myself as
Speaker 1: a singer. I thought, well, somebody's going to have to
Speaker 1: do it, so it's it's going to be me. And
Speaker 1: I think I carried that sort of insecurity about my
Speaker 1: scene for a long time. I don't have that anymore.
Speaker 1: I've got over it now. But in the early days,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, well, I have to do it
Speaker 1: because now there's nobody else there. But I was kind
Speaker 1: of glad that I did because it was a big
Speaker 1: part of my my life. Okay, so the band with
Speaker 1: the American was called Warrior. Yeah, okay, you leave after
Speaker 1: two and a half years at music college because because
Speaker 1: I I was desperate to get on and do my
Speaker 1: own music. I mean, I didn't know how I was
Speaker 1: going to do it, but I was. I was absolutely desperate.
Speaker 1: I mean I played in bands while I was in
Speaker 1: Manchester up at the college, and I did sessions on
Speaker 1: the local radio, um playing others of you know, contemporary
Speaker 1: music like you know Stevie Wonder and stuff, every twenty
Speaker 1: minutes during the night from two a m. To six am.
Speaker 1: I do a song every twenty minutes, UM. And it
Speaker 1: was just it was a legal requirement that you had
Speaker 1: a life life musician. Um so. But it was fantastic
Speaker 1: for me because I got to experiment with recording. Because
Speaker 1: I had a little recording studios. I used to bring
Speaker 1: in synthesizers, sometimes used to bring in friends to do stuff,
Speaker 1: and we used to I can't of you know we did.
Speaker 1: I did the covers, but we also started to experiment
Speaker 1: with my own music, and you know, I've got even more,
Speaker 1: you know. And then also the brilliant thing was I've
Speaker 1: forgotten about this is that I had access to their
Speaker 1: music library where they had literally thousands of LPs and
Speaker 1: I could go in there in between doing these little
Speaker 1: numbers to go and listen to Billy Joel and listen
Speaker 1: to surfs up, you know, and and discover music that
Speaker 1: I couldn't afford to buy myself. And so it was,
Speaker 1: it was, it was a really cool thing to do.
Speaker 1: But I just got this thing, I'm never going to
Speaker 1: be a classical musician. The place was full of these
Speaker 1: genius musicians. Um, and that's not going to be me.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to write my own music
Speaker 1: and do my own thing. So I took the bowl step,
Speaker 1: left college and I went back to live with my
Speaker 1: parents and got the first job that anybody offered me,
Speaker 1: which was working in a factory rolling surrand rap to
Speaker 1: earn you know, to earn money. And yeah, okay, so
Speaker 1: how long did you rolls ran rap and what were
Speaker 1: you doing musically? Yeah? So I think I was there, Um,
Speaker 1: I think I'm so for at least two years, two
Speaker 1: and a half years. And so what I was doing
Speaker 1: was was, you know, there was a local recording studio
Speaker 1: forward track recordings too, so I was able to afford
Speaker 1: to go in there late at night, you know, because
Speaker 1: I was at work during the day. And I started
Speaker 1: to write some songs and record them with a local
Speaker 1: guy called Derek Tim's who was who was the engineer,
Speaker 1: and you know sort of experimented with things. I mean,
Speaker 1: I didn't quite know what to do. Finally, UM left
Speaker 1: home to go and live with my my my then
Speaker 1: girlfriend now my wife, Jan and we moved into a
Speaker 1: bedsit in High Wycomb and you know, we scrimped and
Speaker 1: saved until we could afford to get a mortgage on
Speaker 1: a on a small, tiny little house in a quite
Speaker 1: a rough area of town. And at that point I
Speaker 1: had room to then think about how I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: you know, my music. And I used to give piano
Speaker 1: lessons after the after the you know factory, and I
Speaker 1: was at one time I had sixty students, but hardly
Speaker 1: well less than half of them came every week. Um,
Speaker 1: but I had a room where I could start saying.
Speaker 1: One of my students lent me a drum machine. It
Speaker 1: was called a Bentley rhythm Ace. It's very primitive, like
Speaker 1: one you'd have with a you know, electronic organ, and
Speaker 1: I set some of the beats running. I started playing
Speaker 1: the piano with it, and I thought, wow, this could
Speaker 1: be this could be great. You know, you've got the
Speaker 1: drummer there. With the drum machine, I can play along,
Speaker 1: and so I thought, I can do like a sort
Speaker 1: of electronic one man band. Here. I get some synthesizers,
Speaker 1: use the drum machine, a little sequencer, UM, and maybe
Speaker 1: nobody's ever done this before, you know, I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: this is really exciting. Sorry, I went about doing that. UM.
Speaker 1: I got a couple of since that I brought up
Speaker 1: in Denmark Street. One for base, one for the lead lines.
Speaker 1: There were mono since and then I had another keyboard
Speaker 1: that you know, our pegge add stuff. Then had a
Speaker 1: little twelve notes sequencer. So it was all very manual.
Speaker 1: I had to set everything up before a gig. But
Speaker 1: I started to get gigs. I would play anywhere, and
Speaker 1: you know it's hard for any musician getting a gig
Speaker 1: in it. So we would phone up pubs and say, look,
Speaker 1: we'll set up the stage a little stays in the corner.
Speaker 1: We'll bring lots of people, they'll drink loads of beer
Speaker 1: and you'll, you know, you'll be really happy. And this
Speaker 1: it wasn't like a regular club gig. I couldn't possibly
Speaker 1: approach anybody in London. I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't
Speaker 1: ready for that. UM, and we started to build quite
Speaker 1: a following, you know, with people coming to those little shows. Um,
Speaker 1: people started to start traveling with us. We arranged coaches
Speaker 1: so they could come to gigs because gigs always wanted
Speaker 1: you to bring your your own audience, you know, so people.
Speaker 1: You know, we used to get sixty coaches filled with
Speaker 1: people from high Wacker. We travel around the countries. I
Speaker 1: think our record was three coaches for that when we
Speaker 1: played the Marquis in London, so so and it was
Speaker 1: It was great because it was such an organic development
Speaker 1: of the of the sound, because I'd be working away
Speaker 1: in my front room and then in the evening I'd
Speaker 1: be out playing it to people, you know, brand new
Speaker 1: stuff and developing concept of the electronic musician, you know,
Speaker 1: playing live. Okay, it was all original material. When you
Speaker 1: say we, who was we? Well, it was all It
Speaker 1: was all original material. I never played anything. The only
Speaker 1: cover I did was an in La game by O. M. D.
Speaker 1: Which I loved so much. Um. Yeah, So when I
Speaker 1: say we, you know, I had to be helped by friends.
Speaker 1: So friends who did sound for me, um, friends who
Speaker 1: helped me move the gear and then eventually Jed, who
Speaker 1: was was the mine you know who I saw in
Speaker 1: the audience. He was a friend who danced in the audience.
Speaker 1: I thought he should be on stage with me. Let's
Speaker 1: create characters two to go with the music. So that
Speaker 1: so that, you know, we have something visual going on.
Speaker 1: Because I'm a keyboard player, you know, I'm fairly static. Um,
Speaker 1: we need some visual things. So jed was that we
Speaker 1: got some TVs, uh, and a friend made some video
Speaker 1: tapes that we could show on the TV. So we
Speaker 1: had kind of an audio visual alternative, you know, cabaret
Speaker 1: almost type type thing with it, with all this with
Speaker 1: all this new electronic music, it was such fun. We
Speaker 1: had such a great time doing it. And um, it
Speaker 1: was like there was no fear, you know, he just
Speaker 1: went out there and tried something new every night. It's
Speaker 1: just great. I did love those times. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know how hard it is to gain an audience. Who
Speaker 1: is managing the audience, who is ordering the coaches, who
Speaker 1: is spreading the word. Yeah, well my my, my, my
Speaker 1: wife jan was was organizing the coaches. I didn't have
Speaker 1: the confidence to phone up pubs and say, you know,
Speaker 1: will you have me playing there? So I got my friends.
Speaker 1: My friends do that. So I was I had this, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, a great group of friends who who helped
Speaker 1: me to do it. Yeah, I mean, and we kind
Speaker 1: of did it together. And was there any money involved?
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, now we uh we used to sell
Speaker 1: cassettes that I used to make myself one by one
Speaker 1: at home and just to pay for petrol and and
Speaker 1: actually to you know, buy food. To be honest, we
Speaker 1: were it was like, you know, so much with Jan
Speaker 1: was working at the tax office. I was working in
Speaker 1: the factory, so we weren't earning a lot of money,
Speaker 1: and it was all going on funding the you know,
Speaker 1: funding the music. I mean there was one and then
Speaker 1: one of the jobs that we did was I did
Speaker 1: I wanted to get out of the factory because I
Speaker 1: needed more time to perhaps go up to London and
Speaker 1: see a n R men or whatever that was. I
Speaker 1: didn't even I didn't know anything about the music business
Speaker 1: at zero. Um. So we were out one night, We're
Speaker 1: doing this fruit and vege round and a drunk driver
Speaker 1: hit the front of the van. The van rolled over
Speaker 1: my wife Jan. She was trapped under the van. I
Speaker 1: was inside the van and was unharmed, but Jan injured
Speaker 1: her back. She was in hospital and with the money
Speaker 1: that she got from the insurance of the of the
Speaker 1: driver she wanted to give to me to buy since
Speaker 1: and so I bought, you know, my first Jupiter eight.
Speaker 1: And it was a big moment because we both could
Speaker 1: have be and killed that night, and I thought, there's
Speaker 1: nothing to lose here. You know, your life maybe over,
Speaker 1: you know, um, in the next hour, the next day.
Speaker 1: So just go for it, you know, go for what
Speaker 1: you really want to do. Don't hold back, don't have
Speaker 1: a plan b just go for it. And that really
Speaker 1: did change and we things really started to move after
Speaker 1: that because there was this new real commitment. You know,
Speaker 1: there's no time to waste, let's get going. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't very long after that. Well there was quite a story,
Speaker 1: but um, you know I did. Things started to move
Speaker 1: for me until what happened. Um, well, you know I
Speaker 1: was I was sending out tapes to everyone and getting complete.
Speaker 1: You know, we we still have all the rejection letters.
Speaker 1: It's fun to eat them. Um. All of publishers, all
Speaker 1: the labels big and small, just said no. Except one
Speaker 1: one guy, um from Stiff Records, and his name was
Speaker 1: Paul Conroy. He was the I think it was that
Speaker 1: he was marketing there. But he came to see me.
Speaker 1: I was playing The Nag's Head in high Wickham and
Speaker 1: he brought Dave Robin Robinson, who was the m D.
Speaker 1: Stiff was not a good fit for me really because
Speaker 1: it was you know, Elvis Costello madness. You know, I
Speaker 1: suppose you could say, you know, more hip, cool, cooler
Speaker 1: acts than I was I was ever going to be.
Speaker 1: And but Paul came came to the gig and there
Speaker 1: was there was some sort of row on the way
Speaker 1: home with hit with with him and Dave Robinson and
Speaker 1: his wife. I think there was well, there was a
Speaker 1: heated exchange and and Paul said, let me out of
Speaker 1: the car. Now we missed out on Depeche Mode, We're
Speaker 1: not missing out on this guy. So Paul's commitment was
Speaker 1: just incredible. And so I was lined up to sign
Speaker 1: to Stiff. So I was playing a gig in London
Speaker 1: and I was going to be signing the contract after
Speaker 1: the show, and so the contracts were there. This is like,
Speaker 1: this is my big break. I'm actually going to sign
Speaker 1: a record deal. And Paul comes in and he says,
Speaker 1: don't sign it. Don't sign I said, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about. I've been waiting my whole twenty eight. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm already sort of past sell by date for a
Speaker 1: young artists. He said, no, I'm I've just been offered
Speaker 1: this job with w E A h with with Rob Dickens,
Speaker 1: m D and Max Hole and A and I said,
Speaker 1: I want you to come with me to w A.
Speaker 1: What an amazing break to have, you know, And I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful and they so I was there kind of
Speaker 1: first signing, so they were absolutely determined that we were
Speaker 1: going to have success together and we did, you know,
Speaker 1: right from the first single. Okay, a little bit slower
Speaker 1: you signed the deal? To what degree are the songs written?
Speaker 1: How do you end up involved with another lyricist? You know,
Speaker 1: did these songs just spontaneously happen or was there a
Speaker 1: lot of input from Paul and other people? Now that well,
Speaker 1: the songs we were there, you know from all my
Speaker 1: ho of little gigs I was doing. So the first
Speaker 1: album was really ready, you know, it was it was
Speaker 1: it was what I was playing live. And we just
Speaker 1: needed to find the right person for me to work with.
Speaker 1: And I think it was Max Hole's idea for me
Speaker 1: to work with Rupert Hind And what a brilliant move.
Speaker 1: That was because Rupert was the perfect person for me
Speaker 1: and absolutely wonderful man. And Steve Taylor, who I still
Speaker 1: work with now. Um yeah, it was, yeah, it was,
Speaker 1: it was, It was. It was so excited because I,
Speaker 1: you know, the first single, it was a bit of
Speaker 1: a struggle to record and um, you know it there
Speaker 1: to get other people into sort of fix things. I'd
Speaker 1: never been in a proper studio before, so I couldn't
Speaker 1: really add much to it all a while said you know,
Speaker 1: this is what I do, this is what it sounds
Speaker 1: like live. Um. But anyway, it it came together in
Speaker 1: the end, and it took forever to go up the charts.
Speaker 1: I think it took three or three months to go.
Speaker 1: Came in at number hundred and six. I think it
Speaker 1: was actually you're you probably know more than me about this, Bob,
Speaker 1: You're an expert at those sort of figures. But it
Speaker 1: came in a bit disappointingly, you know, hundred and six,
Speaker 1: and then crept up the charts every week. It's just
Speaker 1: a few places, a few places, and at any point
Speaker 1: they could have lost it and it would all have
Speaker 1: been over. But it kept going, kept going, got top
Speaker 1: of the pops, and that was it. The floodgates opened
Speaker 1: and the single ended up at number three, you know,
Speaker 1: and we kind of never looked back from there. Really. Okay,
Speaker 1: when the record was finished in the studio, did you
Speaker 1: think it was going to go up the chart? Um?
Speaker 1: I had. I had no idea. I I liked to
Speaker 1: think that it would. I had no confidence that it would.
Speaker 1: But I remember um listen listening to Radio one and
Speaker 1: they had this thing all round table where they reviewed
Speaker 1: new singles, and it was going to be the first
Speaker 1: playing of one of my songs on the radio. So
Speaker 1: I was like kind of excited but also terrified. And
Speaker 1: Gary Newman was on the panel, and and and and
Speaker 1: Gary said, oh, I think it's great. I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be a big hit. So it's like Gary
Speaker 1: Newman is saying that, So so that was I hope
Speaker 1: he's heard that story because I really want to thank
Speaker 1: him for it, because it gave me a big boost
Speaker 1: at the time. It was great. And how do you
Speaker 1: end up working with lyricist Bill Bryant. Well, Bill was,
Speaker 1: you know, a friend from from the old days, and
Speaker 1: you know he is very committed to sort of you know,
Speaker 1: philosophical ideas, which was very much in tune with me.
Speaker 1: So he used to give me like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: sheets of paper with ideas, you know, not really sort
Speaker 1: of formed poetry, and then I would we weave it
Speaker 1: into a song. And so there was several tracks on
Speaker 1: that first album that he had a big input with
Speaker 1: with you know, with the lyrics. Yeah, and the single
Speaker 1: was the whole album done when the single came out?
Speaker 1: Or was the single released in moving up the charts
Speaker 1: while you were still cutting the rest of Humans lib? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well the new song was released, and because it took
Speaker 1: so long to go up the chart, Um, it was
Speaker 1: good in a way because we had a chance to
Speaker 1: find the right producer for me, which was Ruper, you know,
Speaker 1: with Steve Taylor doing the engineering. And so as it
Speaker 1: was getting to do A three, I was in the
Speaker 1: studio with Ruper and we were we were recording what
Speaker 1: could be the next single, which is what Is Love?
Speaker 1: And it was incredibly exciting because it felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: what is Love was going to be you know, this time,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't start at number hundred nine with we would
Speaker 1: probably be getting airplay straight away. So it was really
Speaker 1: exciting and I think the energy really um got poured
Speaker 1: into the album and it was made really quickly. I
Speaker 1: think it was six weeks it took to do it
Speaker 1: completely and mixed and everything, and there was a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just excitement energy around it all and that
Speaker 1: that gets embedded in the music, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think it was again you know, for me, I've never
Speaker 1: never recorded a record properly with anybody. So Rupert and
Speaker 1: Steve were We're teaching me how to make records. And
Speaker 1: it was a fantastic education. It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: a university course in the studio. It was just amazing
Speaker 1: watching them at work and the way they thought, and
Speaker 1: the way about structure and about placing sounds, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was and Rupert at this great way of making
Speaker 1: everything fun. You know, it wasn't like a dreary. He
Speaker 1: would never let me do more than four takes on
Speaker 1: the vocal because he didn't want me to get forward
Speaker 1: out of my mind. It would be four takes, that's it.
Speaker 1: Comp those four and that's it. And that always worked. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, like very spontaneous performances, nothing labored um.
Speaker 1: And you know, all this amazing experience that he had,
Speaker 1: so I gained so much from that. Yeah. Well, my
Speaker 1: favorite song on the album is Hide and Seek. Can
Speaker 1: you tell me about writing and recording that? Yeah, I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, in our little house in Green Street, coming
Speaker 1: down one Sunday morning and having this idea for a
Speaker 1: heartbeat rhythm, and I sort of programmed it into the
Speaker 1: A to eight drum machine, you know, Dum dum, doom dum,
Speaker 1: and this song just came. You know, it's it's that
Speaker 1: doesn't happen to me very often, but this one, it's
Speaker 1: sort of what came preformed. Um. And I I've been
Speaker 1: reading a lot of um philosophical works about the you know,
Speaker 1: the Eastern philosophy and Western philosophy coming together, and it
Speaker 1: very much you know, the idea M Watson wasn't it.
Speaker 1: I can't remember his first name. I think it was
Speaker 1: an English philosopher who had gone to live in California. Alan, Sorry,
Speaker 1: Alan Watts, that's right. And I was reading a lot
Speaker 1: of reading a lot of that, and and he was
Speaker 1: talking about how you would describe God to a child,
Speaker 1: and he was saying, you know, um that you know,
Speaker 1: telling a story of of of God deciding that he
Speaker 1: would lose himself in everything, and so you you had
Speaker 1: to find him. And the fact is that that or
Speaker 1: he or she you know, you know, um, And so
Speaker 1: that that that god entity was in everything and surrounding everything,
Speaker 1: and that to me was very much linking Eastern philosophy
Speaker 1: and Western philosophy at the same time. And you know,
Speaker 1: I hope you find it and everything. It's the chorus
Speaker 1: and so you know, that's very much about about that
Speaker 1: theme that that you if you, if you look around you,
Speaker 1: all the answers are there if you if you really
Speaker 1: open your eyes to what's going on, Um, the answers
Speaker 1: are right in front of you. And yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: why this song came from. Really us. How did you
Speaker 1: end up on an electurer in the US? And you
Speaker 1: do have a relationship with Barb Kraus, now, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well it was it was to do with Bob. Bob
Speaker 1: came over to London, and you know, because I could
Speaker 1: have gone with any of the you know, the three
Speaker 1: companies won his electric so I think that I think
Speaker 1: they all wanted me, but Bob was the the guy
Speaker 1: who you know, I mean, he really impressed me, and
Speaker 1: he was so full of life and such a big character,
Speaker 1: and he convinced me that they would do a great
Speaker 1: job for me, and they did, they really did. Okay,
Speaker 1: this you're considered part of the group of the English
Speaker 1: New Wave, and certainly that coincided with the explosion of MTV,
Speaker 1: which leads us to videos. At what point did videos
Speaker 1: come into the picture? What was your experience there? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: videos for me were right right for the beginning because
Speaker 1: new song, you know, we're starting this new era. Everyone
Speaker 1: was doing a video and the new song video. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be involved in the you know, in the
Speaker 1: narrative of it because yeah, because you know, I'm very
Speaker 1: involved in my in everything to do with my music,
Speaker 1: I want to be very involved with the video. So
Speaker 1: we thought we'd doing almost like autobiographical video of me
Speaker 1: and Jed, you know, being in the factory. Um it
Speaker 1: wasn't a surround rap factory. It was that, you know,
Speaker 1: it was we found a pickle factory and we're bursting
Speaker 1: out of the of the factory, jumping into a Rolls
Speaker 1: Royce and driving off to you know, price sunny future.
Speaker 1: But also we go into we go into a school
Speaker 1: as well, and you know, you know, trying almost like um,
Speaker 1: you know, cause anarchy in the in the classroom. Um,
Speaker 1: sort of mild really, you know, taking you know, making
Speaker 1: fun of the of the teachers and standing on the
Speaker 1: desks and then you know, and then running out. You know,
Speaker 1: we're running out of the school with the kids. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so it was really good fun. It was such good
Speaker 1: fun making videos. It was done in a day. It
Speaker 1: didn't cost sadly anything. Um and you know that was
Speaker 1: what you know, we thought, you know, we're making this
Speaker 1: for MTV and and it was great. It was going
Speaker 1: to be shown, you know. So um yeah, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that I've got the chance to work with visual
Speaker 1: side of things, because you know, you have to think differently.
Speaker 1: You have to think about what it looks like, you
Speaker 1: have to think about clothing, you have to look think
Speaker 1: about narrative and what you stand for, and it sort
Speaker 1: of expands that are creative process. Really, I loved it. Okay,
Speaker 1: what's it like suddenly being in the Maelstrom You go
Speaker 1: from nowhere to having multiple huge hits. Yeah, well it was.
Speaker 1: It was crazy. It was absolutely crazy. I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody could be prepared for that unless you were brought
Speaker 1: up in a celebrity family. I suppose you might understand
Speaker 1: and then probably would put you off for life ever
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. Um, it was just that I
Speaker 1: couldn't go anywhere. When I tried to go into town,
Speaker 1: I got chased by you know, thirty thirty teenagers. I
Speaker 1: you know, I had to sort of hide away. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was it was it was a shock because I
Speaker 1: wasn't living in London. I was living outside. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think in London you can you can, you can
Speaker 1: be known and sort of walk around the streets and
Speaker 1: find like you kind in New York or l A
Speaker 1: or somewhere, but but not not in not in High Wycomb.
Speaker 1: And it was it was a shock, but it was
Speaker 1: incredibly exciting at the same time because you were doing
Speaker 1: the things that you dreamt that you may be able
Speaker 1: to do one at some time, being on a TV,
Speaker 1: doing great gigs, doing big gigs, you know, meeting people
Speaker 1: that you never met before that you'd put up on
Speaker 1: a pedestal and you know, I mean just going to
Speaker 1: Top of the Pops and seeing all the bands and
Speaker 1: and and saying a load to that. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was just it was fantastic. So that on one side
Speaker 1: is things are never going to be the same because
Speaker 1: overnight everyone knew who you were so you. And also,
Speaker 1: you know, I was quite recognizable all the way I
Speaker 1: looked and dressed, so I wasn't going to be able
Speaker 1: to hide that very easily. So your freedom gets taken
Speaker 1: away a bit in one way, but then a whole
Speaker 1: new world opens up. Now. I was very lucky because
Speaker 1: I had my friends around me at that time, you know,
Speaker 1: a jan Um and people who did my sound and
Speaker 1: people who did my lights. You know, they've grown up
Speaker 1: with me. They'd seen me come from nothing, so I
Speaker 1: had them to help me stay grounded as a person.
Speaker 1: And you know those people, Most of those people ended
Speaker 1: up doing Madison Square Garden with me, you know a
Speaker 1: few years later, and I'm really proud of that and
Speaker 1: that the same team was still still with me. And
Speaker 1: I think they protected me from losing my mind, which
Speaker 1: I think can happen. What about the temptations, Well, you
Speaker 1: know I've got my jan you know, my my lovely jan.
Speaker 1: So I I was not I was not on the
Speaker 1: I was not looking for a relationship that really helped me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I used to drink, but I used to
Speaker 1: drink before I got famous. I you know, I have
Speaker 1: a few pints down the Bann the pub not anything
Speaker 1: of a problem. I'm not interested in drugs, so I
Speaker 1: didn't really have that side of it. We didn't live
Speaker 1: in a drugg area in the High Wyke Um particularly,
Speaker 1: I wasn't in London and New York, so I think that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just didn't go that that way. And I think
Speaker 1: because I was older, I got signed, So maybe I've
Speaker 1: got a lot of that out of my system, you know,
Speaker 1: before before before that struck. And when did you see
Speaker 1: any money and what did you do with it? Well,
Speaker 1: they said they told me that I recoup my advance
Speaker 1: with the first single, so isn't that amazing? Um? And
Speaker 1: also my manager, David Stops made sure that I owned
Speaker 1: my own publishing right from the beginning. I was administered
Speaker 1: by Warner Brothers, but it was owned by me. They
Speaker 1: didn't own a share of it. And I'm eternally grateful
Speaker 1: to him for that. You know, he knows that I've
Speaker 1: told him so much because it's it's because I write
Speaker 1: everything myself, so so it's it's it's really important that
Speaker 1: you you've got something, through good times and bad that
Speaker 1: can fund what you really want to do, you know,
Speaker 1: with your with your career. So just fantastic. But that
Speaker 1: and then you know, I could afford to make really
Speaker 1: good videos with great video directors, you know, because the money,
Speaker 1: you know, the money was coming in. Um and then
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, so so I've kind of been very
Speaker 1: very fortunate in that in that way. But I come
Speaker 1: from a background where you know, we never had any money.
Speaker 1: So I don't think that ever leaves you. You know,
Speaker 1: you you always I want to be careful, you know,
Speaker 1: want to be careful. Have you know, make sure that
Speaker 1: if something, if something goes horribly wrong, that you've got
Speaker 1: to be of a backup. You know that you because
Speaker 1: I couldn't exactly go back to working in a factory
Speaker 1: now you know, wouldn't It was not going to work,
Speaker 1: so um, so make sure that you you know, take
Speaker 1: you know, make sure that you have got back up.
Speaker 1: Do you still own your publishing? Yes? I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Would you ever sell it? That's a really good question
Speaker 1: because I've thought about it quite a lot, because I
Speaker 1: get why people towards the end of their career, end
Speaker 1: of their life consider it because they don't want to
Speaker 1: land their kids with a massive problem or you know,
Speaker 1: of administering you know, your your legacy it's not you know,
Speaker 1: it's not theirs, it's it's yours. You're handing them a
Speaker 1: bit of a problem. And I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of my you know, I've had this conversation with a
Speaker 1: lot of my contemporaries about, you know, why they would
Speaker 1: consider doing it, and I think, you know, in the
Speaker 1: next few years, I will, I will think about it, um,
Speaker 1: but it would. The reason for that is to make
Speaker 1: it simple for my my kids. And how are revenues
Speaker 1: from publishing these days? Yeah? Well, that that good because
Speaker 1: I still get played on the radio pretty much as
Speaker 1: much as I've always been forgetting savings. Can you just
Speaker 1: live off the income of your songs? Yes, yes, that's fantastic,
Speaker 1: comfortably do that. Yeah. Okay, so you have this huge
Speaker 1: success on the first album, How inhibited are you about
Speaker 1: going in and making a second record? Are the songs
Speaker 1: already written? You have to write on what? Well? I
Speaker 1: was absolutely terrified about writing the second album because I
Speaker 1: had the songs the first one, I had nothing for
Speaker 1: the second one, and and I was working literally every
Speaker 1: day in some capacity, promoting in the studio, doing TVs,
Speaker 1: and it even included like being going to children's hospitals
Speaker 1: and on Christmas Day, you know, to it was literally
Speaker 1: every day. So where how the hell am I going
Speaker 1: to write? And you I was terrified because it taken
Speaker 1: me so long to get to the point where I
Speaker 1: had a record deal and I had some success. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to blow it. You know, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I was. I was scared. So I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to write on the road. I'm
Speaker 1: going to you know, in those times between the sound
Speaker 1: check and when you go on stage. I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to be writing wherever that is. So I got
Speaker 1: this twelve track recorder that I could that my road
Speaker 1: is set up for me in in every in every
Speaker 1: dressing room, and I would write, you know, in the
Speaker 1: afternoon after sound check, and gradually got together some songs.
Speaker 1: And it was interesting because because you're on the road,
Speaker 1: it's all very exciting, and you're playing to these massive
Speaker 1: audiences and they're loving it, you know, so it's wonderful feeling,
Speaker 1: and so you can draw on that energy and put
Speaker 1: that into the music because often, you know, I found
Speaker 1: sometimes in the past when you're when you're writing a
Speaker 1: new records, you're at home, adrenaline is not flowing you
Speaker 1: can be quite introspective and the music won't really be
Speaker 1: really event to going out there, you know, being extravert.
Speaker 1: So writing on the road, although it was very hard
Speaker 1: to do because you have to be disciplined about it. Um,
Speaker 1: it was. It was really grabbing some energy from those
Speaker 1: from those gigs in the evening, you know. It was
Speaker 1: really amazing. And then I used to make cassettes and
Speaker 1: then going on a tour bus and play it to
Speaker 1: the band and say what do you think you know,
Speaker 1: and like to try out in front of my uh
Speaker 1: my band. So yeah, I managed to do it somehow,
Speaker 1: and you know, despite all those all those difficulties and it, um,
Speaker 1: you know, it turned out okay. So you do the
Speaker 1: second record also successful. How do you end up leaving
Speaker 1: uh Rupert and end up going with a Reef? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean I were going to be completely
Speaker 1: honest about this because you know, looking back, I thought
Speaker 1: for a start, I should have should have had a
Speaker 1: conversation with Rupert and Steve about this because we'd had
Speaker 1: just massive success with this, you know, with the with
Speaker 1: the first two albums, and why would you want to
Speaker 1: go you know, we we'd loved each other, you know,
Speaker 1: we had a great time making the records. Why would
Speaker 1: you want to go with another producer? But I suppose
Speaker 1: for me it was like the record company had suggested
Speaker 1: are Iff and he had just worked with Skritty Polity,
Speaker 1: who one of one of my absolute favorite bands of
Speaker 1: that era. I just absolutely loved what what they did,
Speaker 1: and I loved what, you know, the the unbelievable legend
Speaker 1: you know that Aeric Mardin was and his was um
Speaker 1: you know, had brought to their music. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like I'm from that, I'm from that place. So it
Speaker 1: was so tempting to to to to get have a
Speaker 1: new experience, you know, and I'm a young man. I
Speaker 1: want to learn as much as I can from people,
Speaker 1: and so I got really really excited about that, and
Speaker 1: it was it was great working with Eric and he
Speaker 1: was wonderful. And my only tinge of regret was that
Speaker 1: I didn't give him more control of the help because
Speaker 1: I just must be I must be control free. Really,
Speaker 1: I just want to you know, it's just working with
Speaker 1: this man who's like got a lifetime of experience of
Speaker 1: making some of the greatest records ever made. Make sure
Speaker 1: that you give that person a chance to do his thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and I I think I could have done
Speaker 1: that more. But there we are. You know, you're a
Speaker 1: young person. What you do benefit of hindsight? And did
Speaker 1: it kill your relationship with Rupert? Oh? No, absolutely not, no,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. We we we we stayed absolute lifelong friends.
Speaker 1: I mean I was. I was with him two days
Speaker 1: before he passed away, you know, when he was on
Speaker 1: his on his deathbed and I was there and I
Speaker 1: was talking with him. Well he couldn't really hear me
Speaker 1: by then. But um, all through my life, Rupert has
Speaker 1: been there and he's been a supporter of mine. He's
Speaker 1: been executive producer, he's been year leader, and he's always
Speaker 1: been he was always it was always there for me.
Speaker 1: It didn't affect it at all. And what one incredible man. Okay,
Speaker 1: so no one is to blame. Is on the second
Speaker 1: album with Rupert, but the hid version is with Phil Collins.
Speaker 1: How did that come together? Yeah? Well, the original version
Speaker 1: on Dreaming to Action and it's quite stark, you know,
Speaker 1: It's got these really brutal drums, a bit of piano,
Speaker 1: and it's it's stark and I love it. I but
Speaker 1: I did think that the song, you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a radio guy. You know, as I was telling
Speaker 1: you from the beginning, lots of bands didn't want to
Speaker 1: be on the radio. I did the radio. You can
Speaker 1: listen to the radio anywhere. I mean, it's what I
Speaker 1: grew up with, you know. So I thought, we I'm
Speaker 1: sure we can do a version that could be played
Speaker 1: on the radio. And so we tried. We tried at
Speaker 1: the farm yard, you know, you know, we gave it
Speaker 1: another go and it didn't quite work out, and so
Speaker 1: I kept going with the idea. You know. It was
Speaker 1: instigated by me um and I think I even played
Speaker 1: it to Bob Krasnow in his office once and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, because they he still had a piano in
Speaker 1: his in his in his office and I played in
Speaker 1: the song as I really think this could work at radio,
Speaker 1: and he said no, no, he said, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a B side. Man. Um. I kept still
Speaker 1: kept believing in it. So I got to know Phil
Speaker 1: through doing Princess Trust things and charity stuff. Really got
Speaker 1: on well with him. We had a great time together.
Speaker 1: And so David approached him and I think the record
Speaker 1: company as well, to see if he would be up
Speaker 1: for it, and he loved the song, recognized what he
Speaker 1: could do with it, and we did it in two weekends.
Speaker 1: You know, I brought Afro Dizziac, my backing singers down
Speaker 1: to seeing I programmed up at two bar pattern for
Speaker 1: him to play drums too. I persuaded him to sing
Speaker 1: on it, um and it was just fun. It was
Speaker 1: really fun making it, you know, because it was so quick.
Speaker 1: It's just the piano part was done in one take.
Speaker 1: Um and yeah, it just just came together. It was brilliant,
Speaker 1: and you know, Radio really really liked it, so I
Speaker 1: did get I mean, the only thing I'd say is
Speaker 1: that as big as it as it was not, people
Speaker 1: don't know that it's me because it was quite different
Speaker 1: to everything else I've done. So but you know that's
Speaker 1: my job now is to connect that those two things together.
Speaker 1: What did Grass now say when you came back with
Speaker 1: the finished product, Well, you know, he's he's he was
Speaker 1: very he was very pleased. He was very pleased. I
Speaker 1: don't you know, yeah, oh yeah, I guess you were right.
Speaker 1: So then you end up producing yourself. M Is that
Speaker 1: because you're a control For you to say now I
Speaker 1: want to be in control, Well, you know it was.
Speaker 1: It was to do with you know, I built a
Speaker 1: studio at home. I've got young children now, so I
Speaker 1: didn't wanted to be at home more. You know, we
Speaker 1: used to take the kids when we when they were
Speaker 1: very little, on the road, but I wanted to be around.
Speaker 1: So I had studio and I had all the time
Speaker 1: in the world to, you know, to work on stuff.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I felt confident that I could do that.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if that was a bit misplaced. I
Speaker 1: think it's always good too to have someone else giving
Speaker 1: you another opinion and guiding you through. I think that's good.
Speaker 1: So I didn't really have that, so but you know,
Speaker 1: still did, okay, I think. So how did it end
Speaker 1: with you in the major label? Yeah? Well, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there was a five album deal come to the
Speaker 1: end of it, and I was kind of hopeful that
Speaker 1: they would want to continue with me because I absolutely
Speaker 1: felt that I tons more to to give, and no
Speaker 1: they didn't. They didn't want to, So I mean, in
Speaker 1: a way, it was you know, I was devastated at
Speaker 1: the time. I thought, this is the end. I'm finished.
Speaker 1: I won't ever make a record again. I will now
Speaker 1: drift into obscurity. And nobody will ever want to know
Speaker 1: about me again. I was very I was really depressed
Speaker 1: actually because it is what I I wanted to continue
Speaker 1: and I love the people that I was working with.
Speaker 1: It's not like I had a bad time with the label.
Speaker 1: These are people I really liked, and I know a
Speaker 1: lot of artists don't have that situation. But I had
Speaker 1: a great time. They were great for me, to me
Speaker 1: and for me. Um. But it was good because six
Speaker 1: weeks of depressure and I thought, hang on a minute,
Speaker 1: this is the best thing has ever happened to me.
Speaker 1: I can now become an independent artist because the tools
Speaker 1: were starting to become available to us. The internet was developing.
Speaker 1: You could contact people yourself. Um, I booked a tour,
Speaker 1: I made an album really quickly, got it out, made artwork. Boom.
Speaker 1: You know, I was off and it was a whole
Speaker 1: new adventure where you could be I say, in control,
Speaker 1: because you're never really in control of everything, but you
Speaker 1: can lead the direction of your career in your life.
Speaker 1: What about the lack of reallyal success and reached that
Speaker 1: a major label can give you? Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: Well I knew that. I had to say, you know,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have that, UM, And it was a new era.
Speaker 1: You know, I was now in dialogue with my fans,
Speaker 1: and it was it was really about you know, really
Speaker 1: looking after them, UM, new new albums, new material, you know,
Speaker 1: great touring, UM. And it was about and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, there really is a place for that. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're starting your career, it's really absolutely
Speaker 1: brilliant to have a major label firing on all cylinders
Speaker 1: for you. But then when you you know, when you
Speaker 1: want to really sort of follow your own course and
Speaker 1: not be in that game anymore, it's great to be
Speaker 1: independent and really sort of think about that relationship with
Speaker 1: the fans. As you're growing up and getting older, they
Speaker 1: will be to what's going to be relevant to them.
Speaker 1: You're not going to be writing pop songs for you know,
Speaker 1: for pop radio now you're you're you're going to be
Speaker 1: writing songs for people who are having kids and going
Speaker 1: through breakups and struggling with you know, with money and
Speaker 1: stuff and and and problems and that everything that comes
Speaker 1: with growing older. So that's not really material for you know,
Speaker 1: for young people and stuff. So it really fitted for me, UM.
Speaker 1: And I've been you know, I've been. I've been. I've
Speaker 1: been really happy to Uh how did you end up
Speaker 1: in the restaurant business, Well, you know, I've been. I've
Speaker 1: been a vegetarian since I was twenty one, so that
Speaker 1: was that's a big thing for me. Um, there's never
Speaker 1: anywhere to eat. So David, my manager, David Stuffs, and
Speaker 1: I decided that we would open a restaurant and crazy
Speaker 1: mad idea, I mean, and in New York as well,
Speaker 1: where we don't live, you know. Um. So we had
Speaker 1: this idea that we would get amazing chefs, the menu
Speaker 1: would be so exciting that it didn't matter if you're
Speaker 1: a vegetarian or not. You would love the food. And
Speaker 1: there's a bar there, there's a jukebox, it's great art
Speaker 1: on the walls and all those things. We did, you know,
Speaker 1: and it and it, and when it worked, we had
Speaker 1: fantastic people coming down. Lou Read, Madonna, Michael J. Fox,
Speaker 1: the British bands were coming over from the UK to
Speaker 1: play in New York would come down and we fulfilled
Speaker 1: all all that stuff. But we we we did lose
Speaker 1: a lot of money. Um, and the place almost burnt
Speaker 1: down to the ground as well. So I think it
Speaker 1: was two and a half years. It lasted and and
Speaker 1: we had to finally close. But I like to think
Speaker 1: that it helped the cause of more vegetarian places or
Speaker 1: vegetarian food being available, you know, after that, and that
Speaker 1: we sort of maybe helped us to push that idea
Speaker 1: forward with people that it could work, you know, and
Speaker 1: it could be great, fantastic, yummy food. Yeah. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't regret it, um, even though it probably would
Speaker 1: have been a better idea to buy an apartment in
Speaker 1: New York. Okay, have you consistently It's hard to tell
Speaker 1: from the outside, have you consistently played music, made music,
Speaker 1: gone on the road or once we hit the nineties
Speaker 1: and the turn of the century, where's were there a
Speaker 1: few years or when you stepped away and said, lean,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do something different. Now get perspective. Mm Um,
Speaker 1: there was There was definitely a time, um, and I
Speaker 1: think you're right, you know, during the early nineties where
Speaker 1: I just felt nobody really wanted to know at all
Speaker 1: about me and my music, and probably some of my
Speaker 1: contemporaries as well would be in the same position, um.
Speaker 1: And the eighties were so poorly regarded in high fluting
Speaker 1: so or as as a you know, it's not a
Speaker 1: particularly great decade of music, but which obviously I I
Speaker 1: disagreed with, but it was the sort of common feeling
Speaker 1: UM and you know, it was it was a time
Speaker 1: of reassessing everything and I thought, you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: do so many shows. I you know, nobody wanted to
Speaker 1: put you on, and you know, yeah, it was, it was,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a bump in the road absolutely, UM.
Speaker 1: So that I think he was to you know, go
Speaker 1: back to my roots, which I went. My roots were electronic,
Speaker 1: you know, generated music, and so we did this crazy
Speaker 1: UM tour where we played the sort of almost like
Speaker 1: big pubs around the UK, and we did it all electronically.
Speaker 1: It was different every night. We had lots of UM
Speaker 1: sampling going on, and that Robbie was out on the
Speaker 1: mixing desk is actually in the band now, but he
Speaker 1: was out on the mixing desk doing all kinds of
Speaker 1: sound manipulation and so a lot of experimentation was going
Speaker 1: on and we used to record it and make c
Speaker 1: d s on the premises that night to sell to
Speaker 1: the people. So they actually got CD that with artwork
Speaker 1: generated from the gig before they left the venue. We
Speaker 1: couldn't always fulfill all the orders, so we had to
Speaker 1: send them on. But we may be one of the
Speaker 1: first people to do that because we were doing it
Speaker 1: with like conventional CD burners. We weren't doing it with
Speaker 1: industrial levels stuff, you know. Um, And so it was
Speaker 1: just thinking, you know then, and really that's the roots
Speaker 1: of where I've got back to today, was that, Um,
Speaker 1: we just kept incrementally making things better and developing a
Speaker 1: kind of hybrid between electronic music and great playing. And
Speaker 1: I think that's where, you know, where we've got to now.
Speaker 1: But it was it's sort of reinventing all that stuff. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was it was a it was a
Speaker 1: you know not it was a weird time for us
Speaker 1: during the the nineties, but you know, it gradually started
Speaker 1: to come good. You speak about the denigration of the Elias.
Speaker 1: Although I'm a big fan, you've gotten a good number
Speaker 1: of negative reviews. Now, that was a different era where
Speaker 1: people now it doesn't even apply guys, you know, without
Speaker 1: a date and skinny jeans judging everything. But how did
Speaker 1: but how did you handle that? Oh? I didn't handle
Speaker 1: it very well. At first. I realized I mustn't read
Speaker 1: it because it was poisoning me, you know, because I
Speaker 1: had so much abuse. Really it was um. You know,
Speaker 1: the bit that hurt most was that I was manufactured
Speaker 1: pop star and it couldn't have been further from the truth.
Speaker 1: You know. It was a totally grassroots lead thing. You know.
Speaker 1: I I started playing in the most humblest places and
Speaker 1: build a following um that wanted to follow me around
Speaker 1: around the country. And I was doing something that nobody
Speaker 1: had done before. Yeah, and uh so it was hurtful.
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone said, Howard Jones doesn't need to turn up
Speaker 1: to his shows, just sends the gear and his roadie
Speaker 1: presses the button. You know. The the level of kind
Speaker 1: of ignorance about what we were doing was like gross.
Speaker 1: But and then there was this whole thing about anything
Speaker 1: that was involving synthesizers was had no soul and it
Speaker 1: was soul less music. Um, it was mechanical. And you know,
Speaker 1: as I absolutely fight that I had, the Musicians Union
Speaker 1: wanted to get rid of me, um, to ban me
Speaker 1: from being in the Musicians Union because they said I
Speaker 1: was taking work away from musicians. It was like every
Speaker 1: front you're being attacked. And then at the same time,
Speaker 1: the fans and people who loved the music were just
Speaker 1: you know, loving it. And I used to get really
Speaker 1: annoyed that people would right off the eighties as a
Speaker 1: you know, uh, as a as a terrible decade for music.
Speaker 1: But I used to say, well, hang on a minute,
Speaker 1: aren't you writing off a whole generation of people at
Speaker 1: the same time. It's like that actually loved that music.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, things have changed now and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, it has become recognized as as yeah, great,
Speaker 1: it's a great exciting time for for music and very
Speaker 1: diverse as well, and so that's great, But but you know,
Speaker 1: we did have to go through that period of yeah,
Speaker 1: bumps in the road. Yeah, there's it's part of life
Speaker 1: in it. So how did you meet Jeanne and what
Speaker 1: made it sustain? Okay, so, jan we've been together for
Speaker 1: I don't know, fourty five years or something like that.
Speaker 1: I was best friends with her brother and he was
Speaker 1: the one who enabled me to go to the Isle
Speaker 1: of Wight Festival in always be grateful to him for that.
Speaker 1: My parents wouldn't wouldn't have let me go unless he
Speaker 1: had been there. So his young sister, jan Um I
Speaker 1: got to meet through him, and she wanted to have
Speaker 1: piano lessons, and so I taught her to play the
Speaker 1: piano and she actually got to grade five, which is
Speaker 1: you know, she's quite good really, and um, so obviously
Speaker 1: we weren't going out or anything at that time. But
Speaker 1: then I went to music college, came back, she went
Speaker 1: to college, and then we we met up and that
Speaker 1: was it. We we we moved out into our own
Speaker 1: bedsit places, one room room and built our lives you know,
Speaker 1: from there, from nothing. Really it was it's a great
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of it. Really, you know, we literally
Speaker 1: had nothing and we just at a great time. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: we we've always had each other as support. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I am an artist, and I am subject to
Speaker 1: the you know, the you know, the criticisms and the
Speaker 1: and the ups and downs that you get when you
Speaker 1: stick your head above the parapet and you say, oh,
Speaker 1: listen to my music, you know, and obviously there's going
Speaker 1: to be people that I don't like you doing that.
Speaker 1: And and so having somebody like jan who always grounds
Speaker 1: me and reminds me of what's real has been like
Speaker 1: it's been the joy of my life. You know, whatever
Speaker 1: may be going on around I that the real joy
Speaker 1: has become has come from our our relationship. Okay, you
Speaker 1: also played Live Aid, which was such a big deal
Speaker 1: at the time, but it has become absolutely legendary, iconic
Speaker 1: on the level of the original Woodstock. How did you
Speaker 1: end up being on the show and what was your experience. Well,
Speaker 1: I missed out on being on the single do they
Speaker 1: know It's Christmas? Feed the World? And I really felt
Speaker 1: that I should have been part of that. I sort
Speaker 1: of raise my hand and said, I need to be
Speaker 1: on this. I really want to be on this. It's
Speaker 1: such a great thing. I missed out. So when I
Speaker 1: heard about Live Aid, I said to David, you know,
Speaker 1: we have to get in touch with Geldof and let's
Speaker 1: say that I will do anything to be part of
Speaker 1: this because it is such a great thing to be doing.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to save lives with this. It's
Speaker 1: gonna it's gonna be brilliant, and I want to be
Speaker 1: part of it. I want to throw my weight behind it.
Speaker 1: And Geldof, you know, it's very pragmatic, he said, you know,
Speaker 1: you you you you've to be on it. You've had
Speaker 1: to sell a million albums in the last six months,
Speaker 1: and I at that time in my career. That's that was. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we we we had shows on the on the
Speaker 1: west coast of the of the U S. I flew
Speaker 1: back to London with Afro dizzyact, my three backing singers,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was, it was. It was just such.
Speaker 1: I met, I met Diana Um, I met David Bowie.
Speaker 1: I hung out with McCartney and Linda McCartney. Linda took
Speaker 1: a picture of me and Paul. I got to do
Speaker 1: Hide and Seek, my favorite on. I mean, there's so
Speaker 1: many things that happened to me that day. It was.
Speaker 1: It was. I can remember all of them, and it
Speaker 1: was just brilliant. Flying in the helicopter, a copter with
Speaker 1: members the Queen Um, David Bowie, knowing who I was
Speaker 1: and knowing that I was doing pretty well in America,
Speaker 1: performing outside a cappella with with the girls appetusiac Um
Speaker 1: to two people, one of them was towns End and
Speaker 1: one of them was David Bowie. I mean, all these
Speaker 1: stories that I these people that I thought I would
Speaker 1: never meet. I mean, who was the first band I
Speaker 1: ever saw when I um in Canada going to a
Speaker 1: proper concert and you know, having towns End standing in
Speaker 1: front of you listening to your music. Was that's it's
Speaker 1: just great? I don't know it was it was I felt.
Speaker 1: I feel really privileged that I was a part of it.
Speaker 1: And with regard to feed the world, do they know
Speaker 1: it's Christmas? I invited Midsyear to tour with us this
Speaker 1: summer and we were trying to work out what song
Speaker 1: we should do together, and I said, can we do
Speaker 1: you know, feed the World? Because he hardly ever does it?
Speaker 1: You know, he wrote that with with Geldorf, of course,
Speaker 1: and so I got to do it. I got to
Speaker 1: sing all the parts I I. You know, if you
Speaker 1: wait long enough, all your dreams have come true. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: I hope that's true. One of my dreams will be
Speaker 1: able to talk to people like you bridge that gap.
Speaker 1: How did I want to thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time to talk to me, Well, thank you,
Speaker 1: Bob the legend that you are for for doing this
Speaker 1: interview with me. I really really appreciate it. And it's
Speaker 1: a love to do an in depth thing like this.
Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed your your podcast with Darryl Hall. I
Speaker 1: learned so much from that. I learned so much. It's
Speaker 1: so it was very inspiring, so thank you for having
Speaker 1: me absolutely until next time. This is Bob left, set
Speaker 1: H