Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
Speaker 1: It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
Speaker 1: it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
Speaker 1: on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me,
Speaker 1: buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
Speaker 1: see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.
Speaker 2: I'm not your dad. You come or don't come.
Speaker 1: But you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
Speaker 1: The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
Speaker 1: end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
Speaker 1: the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are
Speaker 1: available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour
Speaker 1: or at your local outlet in your region. My name
Speaker 1: is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy.
Speaker 1: I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
Speaker 1: Of course, I love every guest I have in the podcast,
Speaker 1: but today's a little bit different because I actually do
Speaker 1: love love best guest. She's my friend. She's a rock star,
Speaker 1: and she really is a rock star, like sometimes when
Speaker 1: you say that you're a rock star, but she's also
Speaker 1: a rock star. Her name is Katie Tunstall and she's gorgeous.
Speaker 2: Enjoy this.
Speaker 1: Tamas, who is producing the show at the moment, is
Speaker 1: obviously he's a vampire, and he can only come into
Speaker 1: your house if you and people forget that about vampires.
Speaker 2: You have to ask them across the threshold.
Speaker 3: Absolutely invitation necessary.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, so you're in Saucolito.
Speaker 3: I'm in Saucilito, California. I can see the Golden Gate
Speaker 3: Bridge from my little room and still the city at
Speaker 3: a distance, which is wonderful.
Speaker 2: Do you know Bonnie Ray? Do you know?
Speaker 3: I don't know her well. But when I first started out,
Speaker 3: we were playing in Nashville and I turned we were
Speaker 3: playing in some little dive It was like a little
Speaker 3: five hundred kind of dive club. And I turned to
Speaker 3: the right and Bonnie Ray is sitting side of stage
Speaker 3: watching the show.
Speaker 2: You know she lives right there in Socalo.
Speaker 3: Does she live here? I didn't realize right there? No
Speaker 3: way funny because I did a voiceover job this morning
Speaker 3: in a little a great local studio called Studio D.
Speaker 3: Studio D recording or something. But he was telling me
Speaker 3: that Bonnie ray just made a record there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the last time I was in social Leedo,
Speaker 1: I went to a shop. You know, they have shops
Speaker 1: in sociallyto They only have shops. They have shops, and
Speaker 1: in one of the shops they sell like little things
Speaker 1: like art, yes, and you know a little kind of
Speaker 1: all the things.
Speaker 3: That you didn't realize you needed.
Speaker 2: And I booked at Bonnie Rae.
Speaker 1: And I know Bonnie because is a very good friend
Speaker 1: of mine who sadly died sense actually was her guitarist for.
Speaker 2: A long time.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, really yeah, well it's all making sense. But yeah,
Speaker 3: she's she's one of the greats for sure.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, she's fantastic. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think YouTube would get along very well.
Speaker 1: Actually, you get a bit of a Bonnie Raye vibe yourself, listen.
Speaker 3: She's she's one of the ones, one of the one
Speaker 3: of the sets of shoulders that I stand upon for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's like rock star.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a time when women and that area of rock
Speaker 1: it wasn't like was pact with them.
Speaker 3: No, And my my own brush with that energy from
Speaker 3: a closer relationship with Susie Quatro.
Speaker 2: I love what was the Canada can oh Canda.
Speaker 1: Can remember watching the Pops when I was a kid.
Speaker 3: The really cool thing about Susie as well was that
Speaker 3: she did the leather onesie and the kind of mode hair.
Speaker 3: But she really didn't like wear makeup, you know, she
Speaker 3: didn't really glamor. She was kind of one of the guys.
Speaker 3: But Susie was the first ever ever female rock and
Speaker 3: roll musician to play an instrument on stage. Really yeah,
Speaker 3: And so she'd been plucked out of Detroit taken over
Speaker 3: to the UK Mickey most Rack Studios.
Speaker 1: And Mickey Most two was that producer. It was kind
Speaker 1: of like Simon Cole before Simon Cole.
Speaker 3: Right, It's an amazing story. She was, she was, She
Speaker 3: was in a family band and she actually played drums
Speaker 3: in her family band with her sisters and they what
Speaker 3: were they called the Oh God, I'd have to I'd
Speaker 3: have to google it. I can't remember. It would have
Speaker 3: to be four of them, whether four of them in
Speaker 3: four sisters or three sisters. But this record, I think
Speaker 3: Mickey Most gone to America's seen her and they only
Speaker 3: wanted Susie and her dad didn't tell her, and so
Speaker 3: for a year. She was sort of carrying on playing
Speaker 3: in this family group, and then finally she found out
Speaker 3: that they actually wanted her. She went over and ended
Speaker 3: up selling fifty five million records in Europe.
Speaker 2: Were you doing gigs with it recently?
Speaker 3: So I met her? She was a huge Elvis fan,
Speaker 3: and I met her about twenty years ago doing like
Speaker 3: an Elvis, huge Elvis tribute show in Hyde Park.
Speaker 2: And she's such a.
Speaker 3: Character and so I had kind of based my second
Speaker 3: album cover on her. I've got this It's called Drastic Fantastic.
Speaker 3: I've got this big mirrored bass that I'm playing and
Speaker 3: it was like, you know, sort of Susie Cottrow homage. Anyway,
Speaker 3: she saw me after she played and she goes Katie
Speaker 3: Dunstall and I was like, oh my god, well like
Speaker 3: Susie Cortro And she goes, I'm handing you the baton
Speaker 3: and I was like, what fucking baton?
Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
Speaker 3: And she basically handed me the invisible baton of female rock,
Speaker 3: where she said you're the one that I see doing
Speaker 3: what I did, and you're the one who's going to
Speaker 3: carry it on, and we need to do something together.
Speaker 3: And ten years later we wrote a geet's record together.
Speaker 2: That's crazy, you know.
Speaker 1: I talked on the podcast to a young American musician
Speaker 1: who is a woman who are her family are Scottish.
Speaker 3: What's her name?
Speaker 2: Bishop Briggs?
Speaker 3: The name, yes, I mean, imagine me called Bishop Briggs.
Speaker 2: She's not really called Bishop Briggs, which.
Speaker 3: Using it as an artist name is fantastic.
Speaker 1: It's very funny because Bishop Breaks, to those who don't know,
Speaker 1: is a suburb of Glasgow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I should call myself Trenent from Edinburgh.
Speaker 2: I have to be Cumbernauld.
Speaker 1: Oh, mister Nold, call come I think it was called myself.
Speaker 4: Come Bernd Bernold, Come Bernold, because is that your born name?
Speaker 1: No, it's my name, Come Bernold. She was saying how
Speaker 1: much of an influence? Because I said, you know Katie
Speaker 1: and she said, oh my god. She and she talks
Speaker 1: about you the way you talk.
Speaker 3: About Oh, come on, that's amazing, isn't that great? It's
Speaker 3: hard to it's hard to get your head round that,
Speaker 3: you know. Yeah, it's like I've had a few people
Speaker 3: say it now, you know, because it's twenty years since
Speaker 3: the first record. It's the it's the Annibal. It was
Speaker 3: just it was the twentieth anniversary of me going on
Speaker 3: Jules Holland last week.
Speaker 2: And is that was that? Suddenly? I see? Was that
Speaker 2: the first one?
Speaker 5: No, it was black Horse. Black Horse was the first one. Yes,
Speaker 5: because I always have them around, because I just so
Speaker 5: so black Horse wasn't on my album. I wrote it
Speaker 5: after the album was recorded. I was still a nobody.
Speaker 3: We hadn't released the record yet, but I was so
Speaker 3: fucking bored of these confessional, emotional, open mic nights. I
Speaker 3: hated them. It was just like Phoebe from Friends playing
Speaker 3: Smellycat and crying. You know, it was awful, and I
Speaker 3: really had I was really adamant to try and get
Speaker 3: some rhythm into my set and and whilst trying to
Speaker 3: pursue my own career, I was. I was the the
Speaker 3: kind of guest vocalist in a Jewish drum and bass
Speaker 3: band called Oiva Boy. It's the same record label. I'm
Speaker 3: going to get lost because there's so much fun. There's
Speaker 3: so many funny stories about it. But the record label
Speaker 3: who won me to sign to them was an underground
Speaker 3: Asian dance label that had Knit and Sony Who's Amazing.
Speaker 3: They had also signed seven Seconds by So Solid Crewe
Speaker 3: as a one single deal and they said, look to
Speaker 3: get to know us. We have this instrumental band that
Speaker 3: needs a vocalist and they need to write some singles.
Speaker 3: And they're a ten piece Jewish klesma, drum and bassed
Speaker 3: band called Oiva Voi, and so I joined that band,
Speaker 3: wrote some singles, went on tour for the first time,
Speaker 3: which was brilliant, and the sound guy I was telling
Speaker 3: him how awful these open mics nights, and the sound
Speaker 3: guy Moschk, was like, I've got this loop pedal in
Speaker 3: my bag. We should set it up at rehearsal and
Speaker 3: see what we can do with it. And so at
Speaker 3: the end of rehearsal one day we set it up.
Speaker 3: I mean, it sounded crap to start with, but he
Speaker 3: kind of tweaked it and helped me. I'd never seen
Speaker 3: anyone like bash the shit out of the guitar. I'd
Speaker 3: seen them noodle and do like guitar vocals. I was like, early,
Speaker 3: if you hit the guitar, you get a beat, and
Speaker 3: it sounded like a badminton racket hitting a plastic bin.
Speaker 3: It just sounded terrible, and Mosh was like, don't worry,
Speaker 3: we can kind of you know, play with it, and
Speaker 3: he got it sounding like a kick drum. And then
Speaker 3: the scouts for Jules Holland had come to see me
Speaker 3: rehearsing and just working out how to use this thing.
Speaker 3: And I was writing black Horse and I was like
Speaker 3: trying to work out if there was some vocals that
Speaker 3: you could have going all the way through his song,
Speaker 3: and I was like, I need some lyrics. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just I had no idea what it meant. I
Speaker 3: was like, these are just lyrics that came into my
Speaker 3: head to just try and get a song going. And
Speaker 3: they saw me working that out and I was like, excellent,
Speaker 3: got a song in the bag for album too. And
Speaker 3: then I'm on tour with my mate from Orkney actually
Speaker 3: half cousin. I just had a last blast, like go
Speaker 3: on tour with a friend and just be in a band. Rather.
Speaker 3: I was a bit apprehensive about being the bride final,
Speaker 3: you know, being the front person and being known. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so it was a bit of a last blast. Went
Speaker 3: on this tour and then got the phone call about
Speaker 3: Jules Holland that Nas the rapper had pulled out with
Speaker 3: twenty four hours notice, and the scouts asked if I
Speaker 3: wanted to replace and I'm like an known unemployed girl
Speaker 3: from Scotland.
Speaker 1: Do people in America know about Jules Holland and how
Speaker 1: important that is for a British musician.
Speaker 3: I mean people certainly know more about it now. That
Speaker 3: was the advent of YouTube and everything. But Holland was
Speaker 3: an original member.
Speaker 2: Of Squeeze Sure and he presented the tube.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: It was a fantastic music was.
Speaker 1: A music show on British television which was ah, it
Speaker 1: was off.
Speaker 2: It was crazy, it was mental.
Speaker 3: It was like Paula Gates on a bed with Michael
Speaker 3: Hutchins and you.
Speaker 1: Know the I know it was and Jules Holland and Murial.
Speaker 3: Gray, Mumal Gray. Yeah, it was brilliant. But Jeweles then
Speaker 3: went on to start later with Jules Holland, which has
Speaker 3: been now running I think for thirty years. And the
Speaker 3: premise is Musicians Amazing. And the premise is that you
Speaker 3: you have five five or so acts in the round
Speaker 3: with an audience that kind of around everybody on the
Speaker 3: floor and it's recorded as live and everybody plays a
Speaker 3: song each and as the rapper was meant to be
Speaker 3: there and he pulled out and I got the gig and.
Speaker 2: I turned on. Was that a real change of life thing?
Speaker 2: Was that?
Speaker 3: Like? Yeah, that was like shot out of a human can.
Speaker 3: So I get down to the studio. I've never been
Speaker 3: on TV. My album isn't I have No Experience of
Speaker 3: this world? And it's Anita Baker, Jackson Brown and The
Speaker 3: Cure and Embrace were on it as well. But I'm
Speaker 3: just down there going, oh my god, this is mental
Speaker 3: and I can and I and I'm thrown out the
Speaker 3: middle of the floor three two, one go, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: just don't don't fuck it up, you know, because the
Speaker 3: looper thing, you've.
Speaker 2: Got to get it right. Yeah, once it starts, that's it, right,
Speaker 2: that's it.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, all right, I got the loop going,
Speaker 3: get going. I can see Anita Baker like clapping. I'm like,
Speaker 3: Robert Smith is smiling, like wow, you know, it's rare.
Speaker 3: It's going good. And and then I get you know,
Speaker 3: and and I know it's gone well. But it was
Speaker 3: a risky thing to do. But it was my label boss.
Speaker 3: He said to me, do that fucking woo who thing.
Speaker 3: And I was like yeah, And I was like and
Speaker 3: I said, but Shabs was my label boss. I was like,
Speaker 3: it's not on the record. We didn't have a recording
Speaker 3: of it. It wasn't on the album. And on the
Speaker 3: Side of the World was the first single. I was like,
Speaker 3: shouldn't I play the first single. He's like, no, trust
Speaker 3: me play that whole thing.
Speaker 2: And I was like all right.
Speaker 3: And then then I morning I've won the online poll
Speaker 3: of the favorite artist on the show Wow Against the Cure,
Speaker 3: Against the Cure, and he a Bakker and Jackson Brown
Speaker 3: and then on this tour I'm on at the moment,
Speaker 3: we just played the Troubadour in Hollywood as our first.
Speaker 2: Because Megan and I were trying to know and we
Speaker 2: couldn't make it work. And I'm sorry, no, it was fantastic.
Speaker 3: We played the show and there's a little I don't
Speaker 3: know if you've done a gig there, but there's a
Speaker 3: little corridortairs dressing room and after the gig is great gig,
Speaker 3: I'm getting changed and an older gentleman comes straight into
Speaker 3: the dressing room, which is weird, like usually you've got
Speaker 3: ten minutes or so after the show, and then I
Speaker 3: realized it's clearly a friend of Sean's, and so you know,
Speaker 3: all good, and he's got a beard and anyway comes
Speaker 3: up to me in the dressing room and he goes, Katie,
Speaker 3: it's Jackson Brown. Oh and I never met him that
Speaker 3: night and I've never met him since. And I told
Speaker 3: the story on stage age and Jackson Brown's like, I
Speaker 3: remember that night. It was crazy.
Speaker 2: That's great, it was amazing.
Speaker 1: I love. I love when you hear about that kind
Speaker 1: of collegiate environment that musicians can have, and they they
Speaker 1: seem to like proper musicians, particularly I think rock musicians
Speaker 1: that right. They don't correct me if I'm wrong, but
Speaker 1: it seems to me that there's a kind of delight
Speaker 1: in each other's work that I don't see so much
Speaker 1: maybe with with other areas of entertainment.
Speaker 3: It's really funny because it's like it's like a kind
Speaker 3: of high school musical with musicians where you often, like
Speaker 3: at festivals or something where lots of you were there
Speaker 3: in one place because we don't actually see each other
Speaker 3: very often because you're touring all the time, the same
Speaker 3: as a as a comedian, that you you don't really
Speaker 3: fraternize that often.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I don't know at all.
Speaker 3: And then when we see each other there's this kind of.
Speaker 2: Like you know, are we are?
Speaker 3: We? Are we cool? And then as soon as you
Speaker 3: know the vibe is good, you can absolutely gush and
Speaker 3: tell each other how much you love each other.
Speaker 2: Does it cross boundaries?
Speaker 1: I mean that have you met people who are wildly
Speaker 1: outside your musical purview that you think, I really want
Speaker 1: to like work out you, I really want to jam
Speaker 1: with you, I really want to play with you.
Speaker 2: Like Jimmy, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Your little Yeah, I mean, well, what like Jewish drum
Speaker 3: and bass bands?
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, I didn't even know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think I think the most impactful one
Speaker 3: of those was holl of Notes. So so Daryl Hole
Speaker 3: does this thing called Life from Daryl's House where he
Speaker 3: gets bands. It's a bit like Jewels. He gets them
Speaker 3: to come and jam. And I think I've seen this
Speaker 3: and we just want and my head was blowing. I
Speaker 3: was like in Darryl's place, he had a place in
Speaker 3: London where we filmed it, and I'm playing a fucking
Speaker 3: glockenspiel and out of touch and he's I'm like dueting
Speaker 3: with Daryl Hall. And I ended up actually going on
Speaker 3: the road with hol Notes a lot after that, and
Speaker 3: that was just like it was the coolest. It was
Speaker 3: so magic, isn't.
Speaker 1: It The weirdest thing though about getting on a show
Speaker 1: business that you you rub up against people that you
Speaker 1: idolized when you were young.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can't get away with that these days.
Speaker 3: You can't rub up against them in the same way.
Speaker 3: As well.
Speaker 1: People were rubbing up against people in the in the
Speaker 1: nineties in a very different way.
Speaker 2: It was a different yea.
Speaker 1: Now, if you rub, you rub yourself, keep it to yourself,
Speaker 1: keep it to yourself, rub yourself and call yourself.
Speaker 2: Can't.
Speaker 3: But I think the funny thing is it's like you're
Speaker 3: still a fan of these people, you know, And I
Speaker 3: find when I'm in those environments, You've just got to
Speaker 3: go just fucking be cool. Just be cool, Just be cool,
Speaker 3: just be normal. They're just musicians, just like you. They're
Speaker 3: just musicians, you know. And not lose your ship, because
Speaker 3: the thing is, if you lose your ship, you missed
Speaker 3: the opportunity of actually connecting and having a friendship with someone,
Speaker 3: you know. I remember when I, you know, when I
Speaker 3: all first kicked off and I was friends with Scarlet Page,
Speaker 3: Jimmy Page's daughter from and it was at bricks and
Speaker 3: she and I was wearing these amazing Vivian Westward boots
Speaker 3: right that I'd got for it, and I won that year.
Speaker 3: It was brilliant year. And and she goes, do you
Speaker 3: want to meet my dad?
Speaker 2: And I was like, yes, I really want to meet
Speaker 2: your dad.
Speaker 3: And I'm trying to be cool. When to meet Page,
Speaker 3: He's like, Hello'm Katie, and I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: I'm like, hi, Jimmy. I said, how are you? And
Speaker 3: he goes, O great. He goes, I love your boots,
Speaker 3: and I said and.
Speaker 1: I just went, I love you, and.
Speaker 3: He went anyway, nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: Bye. Do you know That's why?
Speaker 1: That's why I would never let the bookers approach David
Speaker 1: Bowie to appear on the Old Night Show.
Speaker 3: God, what would you?
Speaker 2: I don't try to keep it again.
Speaker 3: I know I feel the same way about a Bowie.
Speaker 3: I never met Bowie and I would. I think I
Speaker 3: would be a bit the same with Dylan. I just
Speaker 3: im just like, I don't know what hell you'd say?
Speaker 1: You know, I know, I mean to just say you're great.
Speaker 1: I think it's probably be weird.
Speaker 3: But it was brilliant when I did Jules Holland. I
Speaker 3: met Robert Smith after the show, and he was actually
Speaker 3: the first famous person I ever met. I'd never met
Speaker 3: a famous person.
Speaker 2: First one I ever met, who Robert Smith.
Speaker 6: Shut the fuck up. It seemed crazy like our first
Speaker 6: gigs were at the Edinburgh Festival. Yeah, Robert Smith. There
Speaker 6: used to be a show.
Speaker 1: There used to be a show on TV in Britain
Speaker 1: called Jukebox Jury, I remember, right, And it was like
Speaker 1: some people would come on and they would talk about
Speaker 1: songs like that, there's four people and you play a
Speaker 1: bunch of news singles and people either go thumbs up
Speaker 1: and thumb down and say whether they like them or not.
Speaker 2: And for somebody must have canceled.
Speaker 1: And I got invited on Jukebox Jury, and Robert Smith
Speaker 1: was on juke Box Jury.
Speaker 2: But this is before I got sober.
Speaker 1: Wow, so I was going ah and and I remember
Speaker 1: it only because the single that we were judging was
Speaker 1: unbelievable by E mf.
Speaker 2: Right, that's how long ago it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And Robert Smith didn't like it. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's going to be a hit, and I was like, no,
Speaker 1: it's awesome, it's going to be a hit.
Speaker 2: And I was drunk and all that, and.
Speaker 1: I still kind of feel a little weird about it,
Speaker 1: because I don't think I was. I don't think I
Speaker 1: was very impressive as a character in those years.
Speaker 2: I even I'm that impressive now, But back then I
Speaker 2: was drunk a lot, and I.
Speaker 1: Was I argued with Robert Smith about the value of
Speaker 1: unbelievable by EMF.
Speaker 2: However, I was right, Yes, you were right.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure a guy like Robert Smith appreciates some
Speaker 3: honest conviction.
Speaker 2: You know what, You're right?
Speaker 3: You know, he probally asks people fucking just agreeing with
Speaker 3: him all the time.
Speaker 1: Now I think about it, he probably thinks about me
Speaker 1: a lot all the time.
Speaker 3: In fact, the new Cure album probably has a song
Speaker 3: about you on it.
Speaker 2: He probably remembers it. And you know, that drunk Scottish
Speaker 2: guy on juke Bow's Jury. I really liked him. He
Speaker 2: challenged to me intellectually.
Speaker 3: So when I met him, it was the end of
Speaker 3: it was the end of the show and they have
Speaker 3: a nice little after show and he was still there,
Speaker 3: and I remember thinking I've got to go and say
Speaker 3: loo to him, and so say and I was asking
Speaker 3: if they'd enjoyed making the new album they made, and
Speaker 3: I really remember he sounded like a twenty one year
Speaker 3: old who just started a band. He was just so
Speaker 3: excited about new music, and it was just he was
Speaker 3: just a great dude. I loved his energy about talking
Speaker 3: about what they'd made and they you know, they'd already
Speaker 3: beat around for twenty years or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I've heard you talk like that, so I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of musicians stuff like that when you
Speaker 1: have new stuff.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well that's what you hope, that's what you hope,
Speaker 3: you feel like. But then that kind of dried up.
Speaker 3: My thought. I want to keep talking to him, So
Speaker 3: what do you do? I should I should ask him
Speaker 3: a question, you know, And I didn't really think about it.
Speaker 3: I said, what are you up to this weekend? And
Speaker 3: he goes and he goes, oh, well, we're having lunch
Speaker 3: with my parents. I was like, but asking something else.
Speaker 3: I said, what did I think of your hair and
Speaker 3: your lipstick? Oh my god, this is a nightmare. And
Speaker 3: he just smiles and he just goes, I don't usually
Speaker 3: do that when I go home.
Speaker 2: That's very It's just the best. And oh my god,
Speaker 2: he said. Game ended up.
Speaker 3: Giving me a quote for my very first press release. No, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was. He was so sweet.
Speaker 2: You keep in touch.
Speaker 3: No, like we didn't, kind of we didn't swept numbers.
Speaker 1: Were just going to ask if he if he had
Speaker 1: mentioned me since since jury, about ninety eighty seven or something.
Speaker 3: I'll pass on a signed postcard of you next time
Speaker 3: I see it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, thinking of you.
Speaker 3: Thinking of you, thinking of me, think think of you
Speaker 3: on your tour.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 3: Sometimes historically it doesn't seem like my crowd or big
Speaker 3: merch heads cheap. I've often just it's often just been
Speaker 3: very poor. And the one thing that I found these
Speaker 3: days that actually has been a complete turnaround is I
Speaker 3: I do little handwritten lyric sheets and put them in
Speaker 3: a little you know, frame, and people love that. So
Speaker 3: I think. I think my crowd are much more about
Speaker 3: music than they are about T shirts.
Speaker 1: Well, here's what I have learned about merch Please do
Speaker 1: tell me.
Speaker 2: It's that if you.
Speaker 1: Sell mercho on the road, it's all about the design
Speaker 1: of the shirt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't get it right.
Speaker 1: No, I here's the thing. Don't get involved. That's because
Speaker 1: I think no, I say no, do this, do that.
Speaker 1: Whenever I have an idea for a T shirt, nobody
Speaker 1: fucking buy.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's why I've always had the ideas and it's
Speaker 3: never worked.
Speaker 2: Don't get involved in your area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, get well sadly, if Vivian Westwood is not available,
Speaker 1: get somebody nearly as clever as Vivian Westwood to do.
Speaker 1: Like Thomas, he farms it out to mask. My tour
Speaker 1: manager farms it out to a merch company.
Speaker 3: That I must, I must get the details. I did
Speaker 3: really want a T shirt. Do you remember everyone used
Speaker 3: to wear the Catherine Hamnet t shirts. You know, choose.
Speaker 1: Life, Frankie say relax exactly or hide yourself and stuff.
Speaker 3: I wanted. I wanted her to do a tour shirt
Speaker 3: that said I did life in Fife. But she wouldn't
Speaker 3: do it. Didn't didn't she didn't do requests.
Speaker 2: That is that where you grew ups? Yeah, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It's quite a poshe very quite posh.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it's definitely like got a spectrum community
Speaker 3: in Saint Andrews. But I was I was academic families
Speaker 3: because my dad was a physicist, so my mom and
Speaker 3: dad were English and they moved up just before well
Speaker 3: I was. I was going to say I was born,
Speaker 3: but I was acquired.
Speaker 2: Because I was adopted.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so I think your story is so so interesting.
Speaker 3: It's quite a journey, for sure, it really is. But
Speaker 3: dad was a physics lecturer and so we and I
Speaker 3: found acaddemia was almost a bit like a religion, where
Speaker 3: really it was sort of very hermetically sealed and it
Speaker 3: was all just academic people hanging out with each other.
Speaker 1: And for sure, you know, the bitchiest motherfuckers I've ever
Speaker 1: come across as well, is academics like their lore competitive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fucking teenage stand up comedians. They are unbelievable. Yeah, they've
Speaker 1: always got a bad word to say about somebody else
Speaker 1: in academia.
Speaker 3: Well, it's why I really respected my dad as well,
Speaker 3: because he just didn't give a shit about being a professor.
Speaker 3: All he wanted to do was research, and he was
Speaker 3: just like, undergraduates are a waste of university money, and
Speaker 3: he just loved researching. And I remember the one thing
Speaker 3: that I've really taken to her that my dad explained
Speaker 3: to me was one day he was really upset because
Speaker 3: they weren't getting the funding for experiments. So all my
Speaker 3: life growing up, Dad would go work at eight in
Speaker 3: the morning, come home for lunch, go back to work,
Speaker 3: come home for dinner and then take me and my
Speaker 3: brother to his lab every evening because he had to
Speaker 3: kind of keep checking these experiments and like he used
Speaker 3: to fucking play games with liquid nitrogen with us.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It was benas. But he was very dedicated to the
Speaker 3: experimental research that he was doing. He was working in
Speaker 3: nuclear magnetic resonance a lot, which led to MRI machines
Speaker 3: and yeah, and radiology.
Speaker 2: Is that why you light up in the dark.
Speaker 3: Exactly, That's why you can always see where I am.
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, Dodge she start twelve people in his
Speaker 3: department ended up getting cancer because they were just ignoring
Speaker 3: radioactive science. But the one thing my dad said to
Speaker 3: me was that he was trying to get funding and
Speaker 3: he said, oh my god, they're only giving us five
Speaker 3: years funding. You know, there's almost no point in doing it.
Speaker 3: And I was like that sounds crazy, So what do
Speaker 3: you mean and he said, well, you've got a fund
Speaker 3: for twenty years because you're never going to find out
Speaker 3: the answers to this research in five years. And then
Speaker 3: I thought, so, will you know the answers to your research?
Speaker 3: And he was like, probably not. And I was like, wait, what,
Speaker 3: So you're dedicating your life to researching something that you
Speaker 3: will probably never know the answer to. And he's like, absolutely, that's.
Speaker 2: It's the mark of it.
Speaker 1: I think that's the There's an old quote which I love,
Speaker 1: which is is a mark of civilization and a man
Speaker 1: that he will plant a tree that he knows he
Speaker 1: will never stand in the shade of beautiful.
Speaker 3: That's exactly it, and that is an amazing mentality. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know that you're part of the course of exploration.
Speaker 3: You're not a musician, not at all. Neither neither of
Speaker 3: my parents were musical at all. They thought I was
Speaker 3: born they were just the thing was that they got
Speaker 3: me lessons. They could recognize that I was talented as
Speaker 3: a young kid, and absolutely to their credit, they you know,
Speaker 3: got me music teachers and came and saw me performing
Speaker 3: at the Buyer Theater at all these plays, you know.
Speaker 3: And then when I actually left college and said, guess what,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be a perform forming artists, they were
Speaker 3: like no, they were like, we thought you were going
Speaker 3: to be a fleet teacher, you know, And so it
Speaker 3: was very frightening for them because they didn't even listen
Speaker 3: to music. They weren't music fans. There was no record
Speaker 3: collection in my house.
Speaker 2: That's very odd. Is a genetic do you think my case? Yes?
Speaker 3: I think yeah. Apparently my my a biological father who
Speaker 3: I never met but found out who he was through
Speaker 3: long lost family. The ITV show was Irish. I knew
Speaker 3: he was Irish, but apparently a very very good singer
Speaker 3: and a bar owner, so he would just sing for everybody.
Speaker 3: So yeah, wow, But it's always been innate. It sort
Speaker 3: of feels like it feels like I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 3: it's the same with you with comedy and comedic timing
Speaker 3: that you just feel like you've been born bilingual.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can.
Speaker 1: It's something that I can do. I know I can
Speaker 1: do it. I know that if I have to do it.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I've watched you perform in very different spaces.
Speaker 1: I've seen you play in you know, giant fucking arenas,
Speaker 1: and I saw you do a gig in a record
Speaker 1: shop in London where it was twenty of us in
Speaker 1: the shop or something that was brilliant. But you're exactly this.
Speaker 2: It's not.
Speaker 1: It's a different technique because if you're playing in a
Speaker 1: giant show, you but you you seem to me and
Speaker 1: I know exactly because I know how this feels. There
Speaker 1: is a kind of an ease and a sense of
Speaker 1: purpose that comes with the walkout on the stage. You go, now,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do what I actually know everything from
Speaker 1: now on, I'm going to be all right until this stops.
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel that really comes with time, Like
Speaker 3: I wasn't like that at first, when it'd be funny
Speaker 3: because when I watch myself when I'm younger, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I look like I'm I look I seem cool, Like
Speaker 3: I'm not really looking at the audience that much. I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that much. I'm a total blabbermouth now and
Speaker 3: I'm looking at and I know, I know looking at
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm shy. I'm definitely shy, and I'm I'm
Speaker 3: I'm compensating by kind of playing it cool. And now
Speaker 3: that I'm older, I'm just an absolute like you know,
Speaker 3: gob shy. I'll just go on and be and I'm
Speaker 3: just I'm talking to the crowd like I talked to you.
Speaker 3: But I wanted to ask you this because I knew
Speaker 3: we were talking today that did you do you remember
Speaker 3: or have you ever had a relationship with this idea
Speaker 3: of the abyss. When you're performing, you know you can
Speaker 3: go off the edge of a cliff, that it can
Speaker 3: fucking go horribly wrong, like you.
Speaker 1: Actually that was your career. I think that's I think
Speaker 1: you're talking exactly my technique. I know I know exactly
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Let me ask you, though, because
Speaker 1: have you finished describing it?
Speaker 2: Because well, all my.
Speaker 3: Point being was that I believe I subscribed to that
Speaker 3: in the early part of my career, and there was
Speaker 3: a turning point where I realized, I think it's a myth.
Speaker 3: I don't think it exists. And that's when and that's
Speaker 3: when I changed my demeanor was like, I actually don't
Speaker 3: think anything can really go wrong here. I think it's
Speaker 3: up to you if it goes wrong.
Speaker 2: I think that's right.
Speaker 1: That's what It's funny that happened to me in a
Speaker 1: very definite way.
Speaker 2: I have it filmed actually.
Speaker 1: When I was doing Late Night, because until Late Night,
Speaker 1: I was doing very much to formulate, you know, the
Speaker 1: life of an actor and a comedian and a writer.
Speaker 1: And I would do this and do that, but late night,
Speaker 1: because I had to do it every night. It was
Speaker 1: a repetition every night. I'd be a different show.
Speaker 2: Every night.
Speaker 1: I kind of began to get bored, right, and the
Speaker 1: boredom was interesting, dangerous. Yeah, well, what I haven't told
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and this might be the first
Speaker 1: time I've talked about it publicly for about two years
Speaker 1: when I was run about when I did that monologue
Speaker 1: I did that everyone talks about when Britney Spears had
Speaker 1: that meltdown, and I was. I happened to be fifteen
Speaker 1: years sober that day, and I was like, it was
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven, and by the way.
Speaker 3: Thank you for doing that. It was a really extremely
Speaker 3: powerful thing to do.
Speaker 1: That was the abysto because what happened right at that time.
Speaker 1: I so hated what I was doing. I hated it.
Speaker 1: I hated pretending that I was doing jokes like, hey,
Speaker 1: have you guys been watching the playoffs and stuff? I
Speaker 1: don't watched the fucking I don't even really know what
Speaker 1: a playoff is. And I was pretending to be someone else.
Speaker 1: I was bored and I hated it and I was uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: And then that thing happened with her that weekend, and
Speaker 1: I felt terrible for her, but it was and I
Speaker 1: when I went to work that morning, it was during
Speaker 1: that period, maybe a couple of months before and it
Speaker 1: ended a couple of months after. Everywhere I went, I
Speaker 1: had my passport in my top pocket, so that because
Speaker 1: I thought, tonight's the night they're going to fucking get
Speaker 1: rid of me. Tonight's the night I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be able to stand it and just fucking leave and
Speaker 1: fuck it and go to a Bogatar or something or whatever.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: All the time, Wow, And I think you're right.
Speaker 1: There comes to a point where you go you don't
Speaker 1: have to run to escape the fucking the bonds of
Speaker 1: your own terror.
Speaker 2: You don't have to fucking run. You know that you can.
Speaker 1: You can face it right there and find whatever fucking
Speaker 1: happens happens.
Speaker 3: And I think you just you realize you're not a
Speaker 3: visitor to a venue. Yeah, the venue is yours.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: The cry the other night I said, this is entirely collaborative,
Speaker 3: Like this doesn't happen if you're not here, and this
Speaker 3: doesn't happen if I'm not here. And that's the magic
Speaker 3: is that you create this totally unique closed loop circuit
Speaker 3: with those particular people. And I say it all the
Speaker 3: time because I think it's really great for people to
Speaker 3: remember that when you're in a venue watching someone or
Speaker 3: you're performing.
Speaker 6: It's the only time in the history of the fucking
Speaker 6: universe that those specific.
Speaker 3: People will ever be in a room together.
Speaker 2: It's like a finger the exactly.
Speaker 3: And you know, remembering that that experience cannot be emulated
Speaker 3: by technology. It's it's completely protected from any possible future
Speaker 3: because it's magical and it's and it's to be odd
Speaker 3: and to be respected. And I think when I realize,
Speaker 3: and you know, partly why I realized it was fans
Speaker 3: would wagh afterwards to say hi, and so many of
Speaker 3: them would say my favorite bit was when you fucked up.
Speaker 3: I've got emotional saying that. But it's like I'd be
Speaker 3: like what I've been like, practicing for years and trying
Speaker 3: to get these songs perfect. And it's when you realize
Speaker 3: that the perfect show is something special that didn't happen
Speaker 3: last night. You know.
Speaker 1: I think that also it is the recognition of the
Speaker 1: audience is maturity of a performer. And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what I'm coming to. This is something I've been messing
Speaker 1: around with very recently. I was on stage a couple
Speaker 1: of nights ago in Cleveland, and you know, the Agora
Speaker 1: Theater in.
Speaker 2: Cleveland's a big venue. This nice venue.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 1: And I was on stage and I was kind of
Speaker 1: mucking around with the audience at the end, towards the
Speaker 1: end of the night, and I said to them, you
Speaker 1: guys are probably familiar with the Danish Christian existentialist philosopher
Speaker 1: sore and Caregreguard.
Speaker 2: And when he said, I and I believe this to
Speaker 2: be true.
Speaker 1: Only the noble of heart are called to difficulty. And
Speaker 1: I said, it's a pain in the ass to go
Speaker 1: out at night. It's a pain in the ass. To
Speaker 1: get a babysitter. It's a pain and ass to get
Speaker 1: in the bus or the trainer, get your car Parkin's
Speaker 1: a pain in the ass. Getting a ticket and a
Speaker 1: pain in the ass. The ticket websites are a pain
Speaker 1: in the ass. That everything's a pain in the ass.
Speaker 1: And I know it's all difficult. I know it's all that.
Speaker 2: And I know that money is fucking tight for a
Speaker 2: lot of people too.
Speaker 1: And the fact that you did all that, you went
Speaker 1: through all of that fucking niggaly bullshit to come here
Speaker 1: and hang out with me. I can't tell you how
Speaker 1: much I appreciate it, and then they waited for the
Speaker 1: joke and I said, I don't have a joke. I
Speaker 1: really need it. Yeah, And that was a kind of
Speaker 1: weird moment as well. And I love that and I
Speaker 1: like what you're described. It's true, it's different.
Speaker 3: And talking of Squeeze, so Julle, I don't know if
Speaker 3: they would be a Katie Tunstall if it wasn't for Squeeze, right,
Speaker 3: because went on, Jules Holland didn't have a recording of
Speaker 3: that song, so the first ten thousand copies of the
Speaker 3: record are the audio from Jules Holland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no idea.
Speaker 3: And then and then we had to rush record a
Speaker 3: version of the song to actually get it out as
Speaker 3: a single, and we ended up recording it in Chris
Speaker 3: Difford's studio, who's also from Squeeze. And then fast forward,
Speaker 3: you know, eighteen years I'm invited to go on tour
Speaker 3: with Holland Oates and it's two openers, it's me and Squeeze,
Speaker 3: So I'm on first, then Squeeze than Hollow Notes. And
Speaker 3: this was the twenty fifth February twenty twenty, so it
Speaker 3: was just before everything shut down. We were playing Madison
Speaker 3: Square Gardens, and it was it was you know, and
Speaker 3: it's just holy great. It's like that is the pilgrimage,
Speaker 3: and it's you. It's not on your Bingo card of
Speaker 3: life that you might ever get to play that place,
Speaker 3: you know, right, So it was I was so excited.
Speaker 3: It was a bit of a cup downtime set because
Speaker 3: of the special venue, so I had twenty minutes opening time.
Speaker 3: And the other thing that's amazing about that, for me
Speaker 3: particularly is that I'm solo, so like, who the fuck
Speaker 3: ever gets to play You'd always have a band playing
Speaker 3: Madison Square Gardens, but I get to get on stage
Speaker 3: to twenty thousand people who wouldn't come and see me
Speaker 3: on my own and play a set for them. So
Speaker 3: I'm just, you know, so excited. And a friend of mine,
Speaker 3: it's total name drop is a photographer called Pete Caesar
Speaker 3: who was Obama's photographer and Reagan's photographer. But I know
Speaker 3: him through Brandy Carlisle and he does quite a lot
Speaker 3: of music photography these days. Anyway, he's in town, so
Speaker 3: he says he's going to come to the show, and
Speaker 3: I go on stage and I start, I mean, it's
Speaker 3: just phenomenal that space have you have you gigged there.
Speaker 2: I've never played it.
Speaker 3: It's an amazing space, and you know, it's in the round,
Speaker 3: so it feels kind of quiet. Yeah, So I go
Speaker 3: on stage. I'm there. Forty five seconds into my song,
Speaker 3: all my gear craps out. Jeez, the lights turn off.
Speaker 3: It is dead. I have no equipment. My guitar is
Speaker 3: not working, but for some reason, my mic is still working.
Speaker 3: And so I'm fucking on stage with my pants down
Speaker 3: with a microphone in front of twenty thousand people.
Speaker 2: That I'm familiar with, like a minute into.
Speaker 3: The first song, and you know, the guys are kind
Speaker 3: of running around trying to work out what's happened, and
Speaker 3: I'm just going, Jesus Christ do I? And I thought
Speaker 3: maybe I should sing an a cappella song, but I
Speaker 3: don't know what would work without the music, and I
Speaker 3: just I couldn't get my head around it quick enough.
Speaker 3: And I'm thinking in my head all roads have led here,
Speaker 3: you know, to being on one of the biggest, most
Speaker 3: famous stages in the world in this situation, and I
Speaker 3: just felt myself, go, fuck it, no, abyss go and
Speaker 3: I just got on the mic and I just went
Speaker 3: Madison Square Gardens. If the fifteen year old me could
Speaker 3: see the forty seven year old me standing on stage
Speaker 3: at Madison Square Gardens while all of her stuff fucks up,
Speaker 3: she'd be delighted. And everybody just roared great and gave
Speaker 3: me a massive standing oe. They go the gear working
Speaker 3: and I had a phenomenal rest set and it was amazing.
Speaker 3: It was incredibly memorable. And Chris Difford was standing side
Speaker 3: a stage watching and I did a podcast with him
Speaker 3: recently and I told that story and he let me
Speaker 3: tell it and he was like, well, I know that happened, Katie,
Speaker 3: because I was there watching you. And I was like, god,
Speaker 3: I just I just blocked everything out, you know. But
Speaker 3: Pete Susa was behind me on the stage and he
Speaker 3: took this picture of me once I got going again,
Speaker 3: and my hair is just flying in the air and
Speaker 3: my muscles popping out, and it just felt like the
Speaker 3: arena felt like a gladiator in the arena. What happened?
Speaker 3: You know? What do you do when it hits the fan?
Speaker 3: And it was funny. It was another of those moments
Speaker 3: where I was like, there's no way anything is ever
Speaker 3: gonna be as as confronting as that, as everything going
Speaker 3: wrong at MSG.
Speaker 2: I've done it. I've done it.
Speaker 3: I came through the fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But also what happens is I think, I don't know
Speaker 1: if this will happen to you, but it certainly happened
Speaker 1: to me. When things started to go wrong and I
Speaker 1: enjoyed it, I started to look I started to look
Speaker 1: for it to go wrong.
Speaker 3: I kind of I'm a little I'm a little guilty
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: Like I I when I started Late Night, I had
Speaker 1: I think eight or ten writers. When the time I
Speaker 1: had finished, I had three because I was like, it
Speaker 1: just puts some stuff on the thing and it will
Speaker 1: work it out.
Speaker 3: But that's why it was so brilliant, and that's why
Speaker 3: I talked to a lot of people over here, and
Speaker 3: you are just their absolute number one favorite. Like they
Speaker 3: go back and the guy who's with my on tour
Speaker 3: just watches your the reruns all the time because it's
Speaker 3: a really different level of it's no possible, but it's
Speaker 3: not possible in a company environment.
Speaker 1: It's I think that it's it's when I watch it
Speaker 1: and I wonder if a band does the same thing
Speaker 1: to a personality like you, because you are a consummate musician.
Speaker 2: I've known.
Speaker 1: I know you, and I know you, and I've worked
Speaker 1: with you and I love you and I know how
Speaker 1: you work. But I also know you and I you know,
Speaker 1: we've we've played musical instruments together with my young son,
Speaker 1: and I know that. Yeah, but I think this is
Speaker 1: and I've said this you. I think you think like
Speaker 1: a stand up I think you like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you you.
Speaker 1: You have that kind of of Course you can play
Speaker 1: in a band. Of course, you can play with other music.
Speaker 1: You enjoy it, you're good at it. I can run
Speaker 1: around with actors and you know my lages. I can
Speaker 1: do all that.
Speaker 2: But really, when you're on your own, that's when it's Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I have to say, like, there's been times where
Speaker 3: I've thought, God, it would be nice to be in
Speaker 3: a band, wouldn't it to sort of not be really
Speaker 3: just just not be the absolute captain of the ship
Speaker 3: all the time and for everything to be your decision
Speaker 3: and all the consequences of that beyond you. But I
Speaker 3: have to be completely honest, I'm fucking very relieved on
Speaker 3: a solo act.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I think that's easier on everybody, including
Speaker 1: the musicians that you working.
Speaker 2: But I do because of unreasonable it's just because I do.
Speaker 3: Like to have control of that, of the stage and
Speaker 3: of how it goes. And and when I'm on stage,
Speaker 3: I'm very aware of I've got the wand I've got
Speaker 3: the conch, you know, and you decide how it goes.
Speaker 3: And I love being able to go, yeah, we're not
Speaker 3: going to do that, We're going to do this.
Speaker 1: Also, if you even look at the origin of your
Speaker 1: your career from the story you're telling about Jewels doing
Speaker 1: Jules this show at that time, that's fucking ballsy, you know.
Speaker 3: I remember I remember doing it. It was up in
Speaker 3: the Highlands somewhere. Did a radio show not long after
Speaker 3: that was aired, and there was an engineer and he
Speaker 3: was such a sweet guy and I can't remember his name,
Speaker 3: but he goes get it. I was watching the Telly,
Speaker 3: I was watching what you were doing, and I went, oh, no, no,
Speaker 3: what doing And he understood. There was so few people
Speaker 3: who understood. They could have gone so.
Speaker 1: Wrong, the danger of what was going on. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that whatever, that is that that when you talk about
Speaker 1: the best and you talk about the danger.
Speaker 2: Like one of the very first stand ups I ever
Speaker 2: did was.
Speaker 1: At a punk festival in the IPA or the Ica
Speaker 1: or something in London, and I was absolutely harangued and
Speaker 1: booed off stage by the audience and all that. And
Speaker 1: when I come off, because I remember Peter Capaldi was
Speaker 1: there at the time, he was in the band I
Speaker 1: was in at the time, he was like.
Speaker 2: Oh, oh dear. I was like, I was like, no,
Speaker 2: I want to do it again.
Speaker 3: And it's like it's like, you know, I also can't
Speaker 3: really perform that well, not under pressure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker 3: If I if I'm filming something and I know that
Speaker 3: I can do it again, it won't be as good.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also here's another thing though, let me ask you this, because.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people will come backstage after you've done a show
Speaker 1: and they'll tell you how great the show wasn't how
Speaker 1: much they enjoyed it, and it might not be a
Speaker 1: show that you enjoyed, yeah, as much. And I've I've
Speaker 1: decide I've learned over the time to shut up about
Speaker 1: that now and just thanks very much.
Speaker 3: I know there's a real dissonance that can happen between
Speaker 3: you thinking you've had a great show and they were.
Speaker 2: Like it's nice yah.
Speaker 3: Or or are you having a terrible time, and then
Speaker 3: just going Oh that was great, you know.
Speaker 2: I had one recently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard performers talk about that when they're playing
Speaker 1: in Japan.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's just it's it's crazy because they someone said
Speaker 3: to me, just don't mumble, don't don't ramble, because they'll
Speaker 3: clap for ten seconds and then it's silence, so they
Speaker 3: go and then you're just like, oh my god, it's
Speaker 3: completely silent, and you just start mumbling nonsense and it happened.
Speaker 2: But did you mumble?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I was just like this. And a lot of Japanese
Speaker 3: people don't speak English, so they also a lot of
Speaker 3: the audience have no idea what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Did they understand where you're singing?
Speaker 3: I don't think good.
Speaker 2: Music doesn't.
Speaker 3: And it's another beautiful thing about music. When you travel
Speaker 3: the world and play people, you take it for granted
Speaker 3: that you speak English, and there's so many of these
Speaker 3: countries that you go to, but they have absolutely they're
Speaker 3: basically listening to the Cocktail Twins. They have no idea why,
Speaker 3: you know, and they really a lot of audience members
Speaker 3: won't know what the words mean. And you see that
Speaker 3: the words are emotionally communicating just as powerfully as if
Speaker 3: they did know what you were saying. It's mad.
Speaker 1: I went to an AA meeting with a friend of
Speaker 1: mine from America once in Scotland and she.
Speaker 2: Sat next to me. She sat next to me in
Speaker 2: the meeting, and at the end of the meeting she.
Speaker 1: Went, that was one of the greatest AA meetings I've
Speaker 1: ever been to in my life.
Speaker 2: Didn't understand a fucking word, not a fucking word, but
Speaker 2: somehow it worked.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I made that amazing kind of osmosis through
Speaker 3: performance of not necessarily having to. I mean, it's the
Speaker 3: same with art, isn't it with painting or with dance,
Speaker 3: where there's something just that isn't to do with language
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 1: Right, it's and it's the thing that I you know,
Speaker 1: I am so jealous of that doesn't exist in stand up.
Speaker 1: If they don't speak English, I can't do it.
Speaker 3: I don't agree with you, though, because I'm I'm fully
Speaker 3: of the feeling that I think stand up is king.
Speaker 3: I think it is the hardest, most impressive art. I
Speaker 3: think it's I just think it's beyond I don't see it.
Speaker 2: That way at all. I think musicianship funnily enough because.
Speaker 3: Let's slap each other's asses, and that's more of a
Speaker 3: nineties thing. But the thing is, but Craig, I could
Speaker 3: be having any kind of day. I could be feeling
Speaker 3: like shit, or I could be feeling great. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: I can get on stage and just play the cheats
Speaker 3: and with stand up. There's just a level of vulnerability
Speaker 3: where it's gonna be pre I would, unless you're incredibly
Speaker 3: good at acting, they're gonna see where you're at.
Speaker 1: No, it's not like that at all. Really, No, it's
Speaker 1: not like that at all. It doesn't matter what kind
Speaker 1: of day you've had. It doesn't matter what kind of
Speaker 1: madness is going on in your life.
Speaker 3: You can still just enter. Well.
Speaker 1: When you go on to the stage, you start breathing
Speaker 1: different air and it's it's different, it's a.
Speaker 2: Different set of rules.
Speaker 1: When I towards the end of my drinking, I was
Speaker 1: like the last six months I was My life was
Speaker 1: in tatters, you know, my.
Speaker 2: Relationship was breaking up. I was fuck.
Speaker 1: I was homeless for all intensive purposes. But I was
Speaker 1: doing a show in the West End. I was doing
Speaker 1: the Rocky Horror Show in the West End of London,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of moving parts and a lot
Speaker 1: of things and a lot of laughs and a big
Speaker 1: audience and and and high pressure. And every night when
Speaker 1: I heard the dum dim and it was about to start,
Speaker 1: I thought, Okay, Everin's going to be all right for
Speaker 1: the next ninety nine.
Speaker 3: It's amazing that you held that ship together.
Speaker 1: I don't only for then. I think it's and I
Speaker 1: think that's what I think, that's what it is. I
Speaker 1: mean about the stand up though it doesn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: look at some of the people that do it, and
Speaker 1: then how terrible their lives are when they're not on
Speaker 1: a stage.
Speaker 2: I mean musicians too.
Speaker 1: The one that always gets me is producers, people that
Speaker 1: do all this difficult kind of work and then can't,
Speaker 1: you know, balance their own checking account.
Speaker 2: It's so bizarre to me.
Speaker 3: I know. I was going to say about comedy that
Speaker 3: the place that I always just find genius is the
Speaker 3: silence in comedy and the and and just the courage
Speaker 3: of silence. And the comedians, I really like, they're just
Speaker 3: so comfortable in silence and they just don't need to
Speaker 3: speak into the silence. And maybe that's the same with
Speaker 3: music as well. Maybe it's the space.
Speaker 1: I think it's a similar thing. Robin Williams used to
Speaker 1: always say. Robin always said it was funny you being
Speaker 1: so little. But the Robin used to always say that
Speaker 1: it's jazz. He said, he said, stand up is jazz,
Speaker 1: and the way he and he always thought it was music.
Speaker 1: I certainly nearly every stand up I know, and certainly
Speaker 1: every stand up I like, is musical in some way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not.
Speaker 1: They have a musical connection at some point. They don't
Speaker 1: just do that. Maybe it's different now because young people
Speaker 1: become stand up comedians in a way that they used
Speaker 1: to become musicians.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's kind of like to.
Speaker 3: Me, it's probably a wiser choice.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know the thing about that.
Speaker 1: For me, becoming a stand up was like becoming a
Speaker 1: real estate agent. It was just like, well, fuck it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, it'll do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well not practical more just kind of like a
Speaker 1: second choice position.
Speaker 2: I would have rather been you. I wanted to be you,
Speaker 2: but but I.
Speaker 1: Can't or didn't or wouldn't or didn't have the talent
Speaker 1: for it, or didn't have the application for it, or
Speaker 1: it just wasn't there, and I and I ended up
Speaker 1: doing something else.
Speaker 2: But I wanted to be a musician.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of and I've seen it
Speaker 1: with a lot of actors and stand ups who all
Speaker 1: really kind of want to be rock stars. Unless, be honest,
Speaker 1: everybody wants to be a rock star, because you don't.
Speaker 1: You don't say to someone as in a compliment, if
Speaker 1: they do something really well, you don't say, you know,
Speaker 1: you say oh, you're a rock star, thanks man. You
Speaker 1: don't say, oh, you're a comedian, thanks man. You're an
Speaker 1: absolute actor, thank you.
Speaker 4: You know voiceover voice, you're a guy that can write
Speaker 4: really good jingles, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: It's not they don't do that.
Speaker 8: Star is I was talking about this to someone the
Speaker 8: other day about this the the very common actor and
Speaker 8: desire to do music, and I really relate to it
Speaker 8: because I do think it's because they're spending a career
Speaker 8: being given the words and told how.
Speaker 3: To say them. Yes, and so music is absolutely autonomous.
Speaker 3: You get to do the performance. And the other thing is,
Speaker 3: if you're in a movie or a TV show, you
Speaker 3: don't get an audience fucking clapping at the end of
Speaker 3: every scene. No, no, you know, we get we get
Speaker 3: a huge applause every four or five minutes.
Speaker 1: You know what, fucking bothers with musicians is as well
Speaker 1: as that you can go out and people will wait
Speaker 1: for the song you wrote twenty years ago. If I
Speaker 1: do a joke that I wrote twenty years ago, I
Speaker 1: fucking riot in my head.
Speaker 2: I can't even do a joke I wrote a year ago. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've got There.
Speaker 3: Was an amazing There was an amazing there's an amazing
Speaker 3: bit of audio on the Joni Mitchell live album Miles
Speaker 3: of Aisles, which is a beautiful, beautiful live album I
Speaker 3: think from the Greek Theater in or a Follywood Bowl
Speaker 3: in LA and she's about to sing Circle Game, I think.
Speaker 3: And she's a painter, obviously, Johnny Mitchell, you know, great
Speaker 3: did a lot of her own album covers. But you know,
Speaker 3: she's got that great voice and she just goes.
Speaker 7: You know, I was always really envious of painters. They
Speaker 7: can be whatever they want. They can they can either
Speaker 7: just stay in the attic and not show anybody their stuff,
Speaker 7: or they can try and sell their work for a
Speaker 7: million dollars whatever. But you know, no one ever said
Speaker 7: to Van go hey Man, paint starry Night again.
Speaker 3: Brilliant. It's brilliant. There's a lot of there's a lot
Speaker 3: of like obvious benefits to being a musician as a performer,
Speaker 3: where gratification you know.
Speaker 2: You're fucking great at it. Though, I like being your friend.
Speaker 2: I like your friend. I like being your friend that
Speaker 2: I like being You're.
Speaker 1: Not uncomfortable with me being a fan, which I think
Speaker 1: is it's advanced. But I am a fan. But that's okay,
Speaker 1: because you can be a fan and a friend of someone.
Speaker 2: It's all right, it's alright.
Speaker 3: But I think it's a very good moment to share
Speaker 3: with anyone watching this who might not know that our
Speaker 3: worlds have smoothed together in a big way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the musical of a movie that I did twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, Saving Grace, which now you've written the songs
Speaker 1: for the music.
Speaker 3: For the music.
Speaker 2: It's really good. It is really good. It is really good.
Speaker 2: So you're going to do it in London next year.
Speaker 2: I think that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's all feeling very good.
Speaker 2: I think that's great. That means you and I are
Speaker 2: in London.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a long time, like I've been working on
Speaker 3: it for years and year, like maybe eight years, and
Speaker 3: these things take a long time. And I really feel
Speaker 3: like with fashion. Something fantastic.
Speaker 2: It's really cool, isn't that what we did? The preview shows?
Speaker 3: It's great. What was it like making that film Saving Grace?
Speaker 2: It was fine?
Speaker 3: Did you enjoy it?
Speaker 2: I loved it.
Speaker 1: It was a great brand of Brenda was so fantastic.
Speaker 1: We had We laughed the whole time we were making
Speaker 1: that film. And Cornwall and.
Speaker 2: That's brilliant. She and I made up. Did I think
Speaker 2: I told you this?
Speaker 1: We made up a sea shanty when we were in Cornwall.
Speaker 1: I can still remember it because and I will sing
Speaker 1: it for you now. Is he's got blonde hair, a
Speaker 1: black mustache, and a great brown bushy beard. But he's
Speaker 1: ginger down below me boys, ginger down below.
Speaker 3: So Brenda Bleafin played a really big role in my life.
Speaker 3: I was able to tell her actually when I met her,
Speaker 3: and it made her cry. Was The Secrets and Lies?
Speaker 3: Was the movie that made me look for my biology
Speaker 3: pull mother, oh, because I just thought. I just thought
Speaker 3: I was very close to my mom and I was
Speaker 3: very close to my dad. But you know, you've always
Speaker 3: got that question of like sure, I just want to
Speaker 3: see the the other bits that make me, you know,
Speaker 3: And and I watched Secrets and Lies, which is just
Speaker 3: such a work of genius, and I just thought that's
Speaker 3: an absolute ship show. And I feel like I could
Speaker 3: handle that, and if I could handle that, then I
Speaker 3: can probably handle whatever is it waiting for me and
Speaker 3: and indeed I could. But it was a big it
Speaker 3: was a big inspiration that movie.
Speaker 2: That's really that's kind of nice. Yeah, she's great. I
Speaker 2: mean she's a lovely person and a great actress.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: All right, we got to go. Yeah done. Yeah, are
Speaker 2: we seeing you soon? You're coming to our house or what.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be in. I'm in London.
Speaker 2: You've seen Meghan in London. Megan's going to London.
Speaker 3: And her old January February.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we'll be there.
Speaker 3: Because I'm also getting clueless on stage.
Speaker 1: You're getting the musical, which you've done the music and it's.
Speaker 3: Going to be at the Tripalgatha in the West End
Speaker 3: from the middle of February.
Speaker 2: All right, so we'll come and see that.
Speaker 3: It's going to be fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That would be just an ear for saving grace, that's
Speaker 3: all it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, knock it off, all right, Well, bugger off, and
Speaker 1: I thanks for doing this and I'll see I love you.
Speaker 2: I love you too. Of course I love everyone in
Speaker 2: the podcast, but I actually do love you.
Speaker 3: You're it's actually fam proper is its family. I remember
Speaker 3: when we first met doing Saving Grace and we were
Speaker 3: talking to someone else and we were obviously bonding on
Speaker 3: the Scottish thing, and we were talking about bad language
Speaker 3: and I was like, people don't understand, and I said,
Speaker 3: A good way, a good way to explain it is
Speaker 3: is Craig here. He's a great count. And they're like,
Speaker 3: well you can't, you can't know. That's that's that's how
Speaker 3: to explain it. And you just looked at me and
Speaker 3: he went, I like you.
Speaker 2: That's so funny. There you all right, get out of here.
Speaker 1: I'll see you in London, big love, see you soon,
Speaker 1: all right, Love to you, bye bye.