Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Tom Bailey

Transcript

Tom Bailey · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left That's podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited today because my guest is the cultural force,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the innovator in the Thompson Twins. Tom Bailey, Hello, good okay.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I remember seeing you with the Greek and the rumor
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: was that someone had cut off your ponytail and you
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: were wearing a fake ponytail. What's the real story there?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: It was self inflicted actually, because there were a few
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: attempts to capture my ponytail as a kind of trophy
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: or something, you know. And I actually did get to
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the stage where someone was creeping up behind me with
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: a pair of scissors, and I thought, you know, this
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: could end up in a sad way, so I cut
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: it off myself. And then everyone said you can't do that.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And I think for a while I had a fake one,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: but it didn't last long. I what a question to
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: start with, buff right? You know, as I say that,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: that was back, you know, before the Internet, when you
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: fought for every tidbit from the rock press and we
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: uh strayed to the important issue exactly. So you're in
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: l A. Now, what are you up to these days? Well,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I just spent the Southern Hemisphere summer in New Zealand,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: which is what I do every year, and I'm heading
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: back to Europe, so this trip brings me halfway home.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And okay, so how many gigs did you do uh
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: in New Zealand, Australia, etcetera. None. I did one private
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: gate for a friend, just to help them out. And okay,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: well let's go back. You live there, now, that's one
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: of your houses. Yeah? Yeah, Well what I do is
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I live in France, Okay, in the mountains, in the mountains,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: like the Alps, the Pyrenees. Oh really, down by Spain,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: that's right. Are you a skier? No, I'm not, because
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: we're diverting from the story here. But I broke both
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: my thumbs on a ski slope once and I couldn't
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: play the piano for six months, and that kind put
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: me off. Whenever I've tried subsequently, I just think I'm
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: not enjoying this. How long ago did you break your thumbs?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Twenty years? Okay? So you basically live in France, okay,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: in the mountains, but it gets so cold and like
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: it goes to minus twenty five in the winter, right, Okay,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: this is an old stone house it's not a place
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to be when it gets to minus study five, right,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And we also have a place in New Zealand, so
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense to go and catch
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: the southern summer then, and which I landed New Zealand
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and the North Island in Auckland City, right, Okay, So
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: where are you from? Originally in the north of England.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I was born in Hannif. I was kind of brought
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: up in South Yorkshire, North Derbyshire. Okay. Now, if you
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: live in England, we're familiar with all those things. For
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the English listeners. For an American listener, where he is, okay,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: conjure up a kind of bleak, northern, grim industrial landscape
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: with me standing in the middle of it. And what
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: did your parents do for a living? Um? That all
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: my family medical? My fat it was a public health epidemiologist.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: My mother was the nursing matron of a hospital. My
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: younger sister is a sexual health doctor. My elder sister
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: after care bone specialist. So what happened to you? But
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: if there's anything wrong with you, come to me first. Okay.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: So you're in the middle child, I am, yeah, okay,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: So you grow up? Is there music in the house. Yeah,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: very much, especially from my father, you know, who was
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: a kind of keen amateur organist, actually a kind of
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: church organ and choir guy. Um. He wasn't particularly religious.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I think he grew up in a kind of small
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: northern industrial community where you had to go to church
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: otherwise you weren't part of the community. Um, and he
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: chose to get involved in that side of things rather
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: than the religious side, which seems like a smart move
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to me, I think. And I did a similar thing,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: you know. I went to church and I was in
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: the choir and learning about all of that stuff. Okay,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: we're similar ages, and there was certainly no in the
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: in America. What you did. We had a transistor radio.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: You put it under your pillow and you listen to
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: the baseball game, okay, and then all of a sudden
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the Beatles hit. Okay. What was it like living in
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: the UK because we're of similar ages. Well, we didn't
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: have baseball, that's for sure, but we did have offshore
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: pirate radio stations like Luxembourg and things like that, which
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: became the thing to listen to under your pillow, and
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: it was an incredibly exciting moment. Um. I can remember
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: hearing bands like the Beatles for the first time in
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: that very way, and it changed everyone's lives, right, It
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: certainly changed our lives. I mean, we're here in America,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: we're still running another fumes of the Beatles. So you
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: listen to the Beatles, you're like seven years old. Does
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: that incite you to play or want to make music? No?
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Infact I was a little bit of a stick in
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: them because I had a classical music training, right, so
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: it was a little bit of an unbearable snob at
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: seven years old and refusing to to really enjoy what
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: was happening with the Beatles. I got into the Middles
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: a little late. So after the after the kind of
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: public song era, I was into the psychedelic era. Really, Now,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: were you into any other bands at that time? The
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Rolling Stones where there's a plethora of British as we
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: call British invasion acts, so many things, I mean, the
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Beatles first, to be honest, down the Stones, and then
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: into all of the kind of counterculture bands of the
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: time when rock and roll meant something to do with
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: changing the world. Right. Oh, you know, I remember those days.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: You know, people will always say, now, oh, you're too
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: old you don't get it, they said, no, we live
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: through something like you live through. The internet really changed everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: of course. And it's the funny thing to to note that.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I think one way of saying is that the kind
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: of search lamp of culture, the searchlight falls on different
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: things at different times. I remember, for example, for UPL
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: in the eighties, suddenly, to be in a dance club
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: it was like the hippest thing in the world, not
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: as if they hadn't existed before, but there was something
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: going on where things changed, and it was to do
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: with the kind of music was being played, the kind
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: of behavior that was suddenly allowed, and the display of
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: sexuality that was allowed suddenly. So wow. For a few years,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: dance clubs were the critical marketplace for ideas, and then
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: suddenly it wasn't. How when you say that, are you
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: talking about like the Menchester sound and that stuff before that?
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Even before that, Yeah, I think suddenly I remember, you know,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: going to clubs in London and bumping into people that
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: subsequently became world famous, like George and they was hanging
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: around in clubs and well, okay, so but let's go
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: back to the North. So you're there and are you
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: like a good student. I'm the laziest students in the world.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: I think. I think it was fascinated by music and
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: not else. But I had a kind of bleak northern
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: classical education, and um, some of it rubbed off, I guess.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So you're still a snob today. Now you know the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: terms are flipped between the UK and the US. Did
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: you go to a public school, private school or did
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: you go to a public school? Well? I went to
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: what you call a public school, and we call a
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: private school the government school. Yeah, okay, a grammar school
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: we call them. Okay. And how long did you go for? Well?
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I did the whole high school thing. Then what about college?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: And then I went to college and studied music and
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: fine arts. Okay, so you graduated from college. Yeah, okay.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: This is something you wanted to do or you were
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: doing for your parents. I think it was a bit
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: of both. I mean, I think they wanted me to
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: probably to go and study medicine or something much more academic,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and I kind of chiseled away until I got an
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: offer to do music and art, which is with my loves. So, um,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I went to college to please them, but chose the
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: wrong subjects. Okay, well that you know, that's rare. We
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: always hear about people dropping out the UK and becoming musicians.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: So you go to college, you finished college, then what's
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the next step. I go to India to study yoga
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: and meditation. Okay, well you know, putting out my father's had.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: First thing would say is an American? Well how did
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: you pay for that? Um? I guess I worked, you know,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: like holiday jobs and saved money until I had enough
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: to go and I couldn't afford to fly. I went overland.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: It took me seven weeks to get from London to
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: New Delhi. Okay, like the New Delhi free trainers. Little
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: feet would say, how do you how do you actually
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: get from London to Delhi? Go to Thrust from Amsterdam?
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And like I said, it took seven weeks and it
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: took me through all sorts of near death experiences. Wait
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a second, So you get the Amsterdam by train by
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: boat in trosen train now and then you're on a
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: bus for like six or seven weeks. What happens at night?
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: You sleep on the bus and is it the same
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: bus or you keep changing the same bus? And did
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: you go alone? No? With you know, thirty five hippies.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: But but with all thirty five hippies were going from
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: me Amsterdam. But in terms of leaving the UK, did
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: you leave with thirty five people? No? No, No, half
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: a dozen people that I knew. And one friend in
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: particular who was a subsequent member of the Thompson to
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: was John Rugue. But we're both guitarists. We took our
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: guitars with us and we kind of paid our way
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: by playing basically, Okay, but you're on a bus for
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: six weeks, seven weeks? Yeah, Well, it did stop occasionally,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: and he would stop occasionally, like for a day or
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: like a pit stop something like that. And so we
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: got to Afghanistan actually, and then um, I did spend
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: some time they're waiting for another bus to to take over,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: which is a long, long story other people have asked
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: me about and I think I'll save that for writing
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the books sometimes. Well, did sub think bad happen there? Yeah? Yeah, yeah?
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: And did you feel your life was threatened? Um? Oh,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: very very definitely. Yeah, but you survived somehow and the
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: guitar was my constant companion. And okay, and how well
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: did you play before you get out of the bus um. God,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: that's not for me to say, but I probably did
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: improve by having to play for my life on a
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: couple of occasions. And so then when it took seven
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: weeks to get there, then you were in India for
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: how long? Six months? Six months? Going where I went
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: to Rishikesh to see where the Beatles had been in
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the astram with the Maharsh Maharishi mai Um in a
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: place called shank and there was a sign that said
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: fabulous beetles were here, and I knew I had landed.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: But of course though those that era had passed, but
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: we were you know, we were kids wanted to learn
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: meditation and strong guitars and hang out and eat vegetarian
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: food and it was fabulous. Well well, but then you
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: traveled around India a little bit. Yes, I went down
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: south and then back up to the north. But it
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: actually started a love affair with Indian music that that
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: persisted to this day, you know. So I got to
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: India regularly and work with musicians and that's part of
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: my kind of labor of love that well, the first
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: time I went to India was just last summer. It's
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: just a fascinating place, isn't it. I mean, you're afraid
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of getting sick, but it's where I was. Griffin was
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: won by you felt relatively safe. Yeah, but I mean
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: everyone gets a bit sick sometimes, you know, you wear
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: it with pride, I think, okay. So then it takes
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: seven weeks to get back from India. No, somehow, I
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: think there was a bit of scrabbling around for loose
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: cash and we managed to get cheap plane tickets. I
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: actually got very ill and there was a point where
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I thought, you know what, I'm not getting better. Maybe
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I should go back and faced My father, of course,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: was the doctor, had a lot of stern words about
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: what we've been up to all the rest of it. Okay,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: but then you obviously got better. Yeah, And what was
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: the next step? Um? I think I went to live
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: down in the southwest of England and was into kind
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: of experimental music, kind of work, shopping with other experimentalists,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: and then I got a call from some old school friends,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: including the guy i've into India with, and basically punk
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: had happened. And the thing about point was it gave
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: us permission to instead of looking at and watching other
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: bands doing it, it it gave us permission to do it ourselves,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: so there was a very democratizing effect regardless of the
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: style of the music. It was like, have a go time, right,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: you didn't have to be good. He's like even Lester
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Banks was a musician playing his typewriter. So I don't know.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Before that, maybe it was just to beyond the dream
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: of a of a kind of regular guy from the
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: north of England. You know, that's what something that millionaires do,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: and and we couldn't do it. But suddenly we could,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and so we had to go and we had the
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: original Thompson Twins, which was well, well, let's slow. You're
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: in the southwest of England. Yeah, I moved back up
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: to where I was raised in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. Yeah. Okay,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: so then you're there and you're working jobs at this point. Yeah.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I worked in a psychiatric hospital and then as a
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: teacher for a while, okay, and then you ultimately go
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: to London. Yeah. And if you look up legendarily it
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: says you were a squatter. Is that true? Absolutely, that's
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the only way we could afford that done. In fact,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: it was a lifeline to all sorts of creative activity
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: for many many people, you know, because by living for free,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: you basically had time on your hands to be creative,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: whereas if you paid rent, suddenly you know, you were
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: working every day and coming home exhausted and blah blah blah.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So it caused and in my in my street of
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: squatted houses, I think there was six or eight bands really,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: so it really was a kind of hothouse of that
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: kind of activity. Okay, you know this is not something
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: most people do in America, So it's an abending building. Yeah, okay,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: what about like electricity and water. Well, there was a
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: peculiar de facto loophole in this in this argument where
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the buildings were owned by the city council and they
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: thought that it was better to have people living in
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: them because a they looked after the buildings, be they
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: didn't go into the homeless register. So it was a
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: kind of, like I said, de facto solution to a
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: big problem. And as long as you didn't trash the
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: place for a while, at least they were happy and
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: it was a safe situation. Well I'm not saying that
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: exactly because you know, inevitably it was also the landing
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: place for a lot of desperate characters. You know, so
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: you had to be ready to jump out of bed
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the night sometimes. Okay, So you
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: moved down because you're friend from school went to India says,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: now's the time. Um, I know. I moved back up
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: to Chester Villa, Derbyshire, where we'd all been at school together,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: formed the band, then moved the band down to London,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: you know, in seeking success because you know it's like
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: coming to Hollywood or something. Okay, but it was the
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: the punk era. But did you really think you could
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: have success? Yeah? I think so, as I'm saying that,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: there was something about the punk era which said anyone
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: can have a go and look, there are bands making
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: it that are just doing it with three chords. You
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: don't have to be a kind of diamond encrusted jazz
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: enthusiastics in order to get through. So before the punk era,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: did you think you were going to be a professional musician? Yeah,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: but not in a band. Well we're doing what probably teaching. Okay,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: So you didn't wake up with dreams of stardom. I
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: think it ended up that way once it's kind of
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: tasted the kind of flavor of that. I mean, it's
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: a very alluring thing, isn't it too? To be part
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: of something very exciting and to be adored for doing that,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: um really hooks your ego like crazy, you know, and
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and in a way that gives you the energy to
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: pursue and put the extra work in which it takes.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: It takes a lot of hard work to do this,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: So you can't do it unless somehow you're totally enthusiastic. Okay,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: so there were six like six billions in the Squats.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Then other than yourself and your meat, did anybody else
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: make it from that error? Yes, the Slits and the
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: pop group the Slits, there was. The woman in the
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Slits wrote that book a couple of years ago. She's
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: a great writer. Okay, so now you're in the squat,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: you're rehearsing every day. Yeah, what's the next step after that?
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I was just looking for gigs everywhere, and then, you know,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: as soon as we can, we buy an old try
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: can old van, and then we start to buy bits
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and pieces of p A equipment, just so that if
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: anyone wants a gig, we can just offer the whole solution.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: You know, have van m p A will travel was
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the kind of motto of the moment um. So we
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: did that for a while and then started releasing our
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: own singles on our own Okay, first question, you weren't
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: worried about all that p p A equipment getting stolen? Well, yeah,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: but we put paddlelocks on the doors of the Okay,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: and now you wanted to make a record. What do
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: you do for money? What do you do for studio? Producer? Engineer?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: We begged and borrowed time from a friend who had
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: access to a studio and someone who eventually became our publisher.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I was starting out in the music business and had
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: a little studio and things, so yeah, they gave us time,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: and we did the first record that way, and then
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: slowly but surely we were chopping around for a deal
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and it's you know, it came, but not not in
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: one big kind of arrival moment. We had to work
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: hard for it, and in fact, we put out a
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: couple of albums before we had any kind of hit.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: But we were well known in the kind of student
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: venue circuit for putting on a good show. How many
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: shows were you playing at that time? I have no idea.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: We're playing a lot or a little a lot? Yeah, okay,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: would you play any covers? Were all original? I? Was
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: going to say all original, but there were a couple
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: of occasions when we played covers um just for fun,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: but nothing that became well known for us to play.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: So then how do you get a record deal? Well,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: in those days you just just kind of trail around
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the record companies with a cassette and throw cassette, give
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: them cassettes and watch them throw them over their shoulders
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. And I think the magic moment was
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: instead of giving them a cassette, you have your independent
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: release single and they reluctantly will have to listen to that.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: People like John Peel started playing us on the radio.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: We got some an unexpected and unpaid for promotion that way,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and then suddenly a record company goes, oh that's of interest,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: and we signed, actually with the German company called Hanser
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: did an album, but we were distributed in the UK
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: through Arista, and we thought this is crazy what we
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: go when we really go go directly with Ariston and
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: we ended up on the label. Okay, when did you
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: get a manager? Oh around about that time, I think
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: when we were looking for the deal, and he was
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: another college friend. You know, just how long was he
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the manager? Through the hit years and where is he today?
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: He lives in England and in the southwest of England.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Not in the music business an right, Okay, so you're
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: you're making progress, but on some level you're struggling. Yeah,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: because we hadn't made it yet with a position in
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: any chart. Okay. So was there tension in the band,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: people threatening to quit, etcetera. It came to that, but
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: there was a kind of embarrassing moment that brought this
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: all to the four and in our second album, which
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: luckily we got produced by Steve Lilly White, which was
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: an amazing kind of step forward for for people in
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: our situation. This was before now, this was actually on Arista,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: but we hadn't yet had a hit. Okay, so we
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: were just doing our thing. Did you get lily White?
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: He must have liked us. I don't know. These things happen. Um,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: So we're making an album and we didn't have enough
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: material and at that moment I just got enough money
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: to buy a synthesizer. So during the time of those
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: albums sessions, I was at home with a synthesizer, which
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: what was the synthesizer? It was an Oberheim b x
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: A And for years that was the only SYNTHI ever you, okay,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: because it was quite expensive and I couldn't afford more.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: But anyway, at home, I wrote this song on the synthesizer,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: which I thought, this is catchy, it's not like the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: other stuff. But when we ran out of enough material
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: for the album, I said to everyone in the band,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: it's all right, I've got this other song, and what
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I'll do is I'll come in and teach you parts
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to replace what I played on the synthesizer, which we did,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and it became this dance track call in the Name
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: of Love unbelievable. It will really white produce that he did, Yeah, okay,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: in the Name jumped out of the radio. There you go. Well.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: The embarrassing thing was it was supposed to be the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: filler at the end of side and it ended up
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: being the big international dance hit that in a way
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: was writing on the wall for me that I needed
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: to pursue this more kind of what I thought of
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: as a high tech approach to making music. And within
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: a few months of I think, we toured for a while.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: But within a few months of that the band had
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: kind of imploded. It wasn't what it used to be anymore.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: And basically the three of us that became the famous
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Thompson Twins if you like that, Myself, Joe and Alana.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: We we became this kind of studio unit in which
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: we realized for the first time that we weren't a
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: band that had to write parts for us to play.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: We were designers of records. And that was a kind
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of transforming realization. Suddenly we weren't thinking, well, what's the
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: guitarist going to do in this So one of the
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: first things we did was make an album without any guitars,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and that was really liberating for us. Suddenly it was
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: about songs, sounds, experiments, and technology. Okay, were the other
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: members of the being angry, some more than others, probably,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: But I think there was a natural end to the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: ark of, you know, the narrative arc of that of
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: that lineup. And so I mean, I'm still close to two,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: at least two of the other members I see quite often.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: And are they in music, um unprofessionally yes. There Now,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: when you know the Thompson Twins hit and you looked
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: at the three members, it looked like you were essentially
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the act. What exactly did a Lota and Joe contribute,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I would say as in me well, Um, we had
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: an actually formal division of labor in the Thompson Twins
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: that you you know that you know well, which is
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: that I did the music and the recording. We wrote
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: songs together, although that was mostly a lander on words
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: and me on the music. Joe contributed occasionally but not
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: very much, although we're equally credited in all songs. Um.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: So I did all the studio work. Atlanta was in
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: charge of the visual image, so she did photos, clothing
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: videos which were just exploding as as a new means
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of promotion, and Joe did the live show because he
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: had a kind of theater background. He wanted to get
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: all the lighting and stuff sorted out and make the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: drama of it. So we stuck to that very very clear.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Was actually written down in a kind of weird manifesto
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: when we set out, Okay, these are aims and objectives
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: and this is how we're going to do it. So
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: it was a peculiarly rational and kind of hyper organized
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: approach that we took at that point. Okay, well, you
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: know the old expression, and where there's a hit, there's
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: a writ In this particular case, as the b M
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: cub successful, then it goes past his success. I mean,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: are people used with the songs individually? Joe didn't contribute much.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Does that anger the other members of the royalty participants? Well,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: it shouldn't do, because there's something about being in a
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: band that that implies you're all in it together to
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: some extent, you know, And that's the way it goes
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: when you when you're seeking success together and who knows
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: what may happen, then I think you will throw your
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: hats into the same ring. However, there's another way of
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: doing it, which is where you know, the main songwriter
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: gets all the money, and that can lead to a
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: lot of hard feeling. I think, Um, because a band
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: is a band as a band if there's some magic
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: to be exploited in that band, and I think it
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: should be recognized. And there's another rather peculiar thing as well,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: which is if you say everyone gets paid equally regardless,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: then people stop suggesting half witted ideas to just get
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: their foot in the door of the of the money flow.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: You know, they say, well, I'm going to be well
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: off regardless. So um, I think that was something we
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: realized in the previous incarnation of the band that it's
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: not about everyone making suggestions just so they can earn money.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: So the first album you do as the three is
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: quick Step and Psychic, which I think was just called
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Sidekicks here in the States, and we recorded it in
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: substantially anyway in the Bahamas and Compass Point Studios with
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Alex Sadkin, who to me was just a name on
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: a label. You know. I've seen Bob Marley and Grace
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Jones records with Alex Sadkin written under that, So it
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: was it was a great pleasure to do that. And
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: of course he was super smart and taught me a
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: lot about how to make a good record. What do
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: he what do he teach you? I think that kind
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: of level of perfectionism because he didn't come so much
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: from the kind of the drama of rock and roll.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: He was. He started out as a cutting engineer, t boy,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: you know. So he worked at Criterion Students, I think
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: in Miami and learned how to cut a good record,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and he learned that you can't have the fattest based
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: sound in the world if you also want the biggest guitar.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a compromise to be made. And and
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and so he's looking for those sounds, the shape and
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: size of the snare drum, which is gonna groove the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: song along but not take up too much space. And
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I think when you listened to reggae records, there's something
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: to be learned there. You know, everything has their place
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: in terms of frequency. They don't compete with each other.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Rock music is a mess by comparison. You know, all
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the instruments are getting each other's way and it makes
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: a kind of glorious mess. But he came more from
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: the reggae um experience, I think, and we're all the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: songs written before you go out there. So how long
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: did it take to cut the record? I think we
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: did like a month and a half in the Bahamas
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and then went and finished it and mixed it in
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: rack studios in London. So in terms of you know,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: the record companies usually don't pay for that kind of
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: stuff at this point in time. But in terms of
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: going a compass point, if you're thinking, as somebody, well, okay,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I'm traveling away from home. It's a relaxation party place.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: How do you make a record in that environment? Oh?
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: We were driven, I mean, you're right, we didn't. We
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: didn't really know what we're getting into. And we remember
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: we turned up with our kind of London winter clothes.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: We were punks that we had leather jackets and jeans
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: and it's incredibly hard. So the first thing we had
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: to do was virtually strip make in order to get
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: any work done. Um. But because there was a culture
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: of getting on with a lot of great records got
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: made there. Um. There was a slightly overrelaxed kind of
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: island vibe which irritated me a bit. But I've seen
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: got into swimming out to the reef every morning before working.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: That you know, put me in the mood. Hey. Um,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: we we did good work there, and I think it
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: was just because we were driven. And that was also
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: in the pre internet era, so there are fewer distractions. Absolutely,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: it was we had, as I recall, we had to
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: book phone calls, so if we wanted to get in
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: touch with New York or London, we had to kind
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: of put in a request to the local telephone exchange. Now,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: ARIA still was run by Clive Davis, historically interferes with
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the artistic process of the act. Everyone warned us, hey,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: whatever you do, don't get him involved. And he. I mean,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: luckily he had other distractions at the time, I'll put
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: it that way, including some great artists that he was
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: concentrating on. So we almost kind of snuck under the
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: radar as the kind of act that everyone thought Clive
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: won't understand. And maybe he did more than we gave
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: him credit for, but we didn't have a great deal
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: to do with him in terms of Clive, what do
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: you think about this latest record and what should we do?
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: It was more A and rd from the UK in fact,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: by Simon Potts. And yeah, as as I said, we
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: got warned to keep out of out of the clutches
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: of it. So when the record is finished, do you
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: think you have a hit because you had in the
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Name of Love that was on the previous record, right, So, um, yes,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I think we wrote four songs that we thought we
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: were in the bag with, you know. And to this
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: day that's one of my rules, like when you've got
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: four songs you feel confident about, there's a glorious moment,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: then you can start going way left of center because
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: you know you're safe. So instead of always looking for hits,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you can do something a little bit more experimental. So
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I think We went there with a with a feeling
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: that we we've kind of nailed it somehow, and the
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: record comes out and what happens We had our first
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: um TV and chart regular chart hit with Love on
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: your Side in the UK. So finally we caught up,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: you know, because in the Name of Love was big
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: news in the States, but not so much in the UK.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: So finally we're recognized in our hometown and things are
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: going off, and we tour worldwide and everything's good, and
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: we go to make a second album and everyone says, well,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: let's do it the same way. We were enjoying working
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: with Alex Atkin. We liked to compass port. Let's go
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: back there and we'll mix it rack like we did before.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: But this time, before going we had written hold Me Now.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Hol May Now was one of those songs that just
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: insisted itself upon us, you know, and I knew this
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: was massive, So we recorded it in London at Rack
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Studios before going there with Alex. Um I did it
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: on my own, and then Alex subsequently arrived very very
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: he was busy with someone else. I can't remember if
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: it was Duran, Durand or something. No, it wasn't it
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: was someone else. But anyway, by the time he showed up,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: everything was done, apart from absolutely nailing the vocal. So
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: he helped me get the vocal because it's very difficult
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: to produce your own vocal, you know, you have to
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: wear two hats. And again to this day when it
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: comes to the vocals, I like to just be the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: singer and not be the producer. Um So we did that,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and then we went to Compass Point with a single
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: going up the charts in the UK and in the
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: US and no phone contact, so we didn't know this,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: but we knew that it was out there doing business
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: for us. And then one day, you know, we book
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: a phone call two someone at Arista in New York
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: and they're just going crazy that this record it is
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: super hot. They were so excited, and of course the
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: excitement got through to us. But the point of the
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: story is that it's set a very high standard. With
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: that excitement coming from the rest of the world, we
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: knew the album had to be brilliant. We weren't just
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: fooling around anymore, you know, we were deadly serious about it,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: and I think that's some of our best work. You know,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I love that album. And I listen to Doctor Doctor,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: just the way it starts off and into the Gap.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I mean I listened to it, not because we were
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: doing this. I mean I tell you a story after
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: story of listening to that album, and you know, it's
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: just etherorial. It's like in another world that it was made,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: like you're visiting another galaxy and it still stands up today. Well,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you think that. I mean, I kind of
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: agree with you. We were hot. I mean, we're working
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: with the right people in terms of the engineering producer,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: and it just captured what we wanted to do at
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: that time. We'd become less Uh, it's interesting. I think
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: we've become less technical about the arrangement. The previous album, Psychics,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: was all synthesizers and drum machines, whereas In to the
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Gap saw guitars and pianos and strings and stuff appearing.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: So we were opening our palette to the possibilities of
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: of making kind of classic pop records. Okay, go back,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: how did all me now come together? Alanna and I
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: who we're in a relationship with someone had a big
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: fight actually, and we had you know, the way I
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: explained it is that you know, adults sometimes have to
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: get over those kind of things and make friends again,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: and we did, and the song grew out of that
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: experience of what it's like to kind of feel terrible
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: about what's happened in a relationship and then finally find
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: her way of getting it back together again. And she
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: wrote the lyrics and you wrote the music. We wrote
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: the lyrics between us, and I think I wrote all
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: the music. And how fast did it come together? I
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: think it was immediate. I was all written in an
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: evening um. But then Joe, who subsequently turned up, made
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: some suggestions about the melody of the verse I seem
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: to recall, so he did contribute to that song, um
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: in the eleventh hour. Okay, so you wrote the song, yeah,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: and you immediately knew this was a hit. Yes, I
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: mean if you do get those feelings, so I mean
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: maybe those maybe those feelings can sometimes fool you they're
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: kind of shimeric or something. But I often get that
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: kind of heartbeat that mrs A bait, and you go, wow,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: this is something special. Pursue it, Tom, don't let this
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: one get away, you know. So I definitely felt it
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: over that songe. Okay, when you feel that way. Are
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: you afraid you're gonna suck it up? Unwax um, I
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: suck it up before I even get to wax. Sometimes,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: you know, it's an incredibly responsible thing you have to.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, these days, it's easier in a way because
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: you can guard the version of the song that you
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: think is great, do more to it and go back
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: to the original if you if if you feel you've
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: lost your way. However, back in the day, I don't
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: think that was quite so easy. I mean, goodness knows
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: how many great songs have been rendered mediocre by overworking them.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: I mean it must be true. I certainly hold my
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: hand up to say that happens in um. But conversely,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: some mediocre ideas sometimes get polished into an interesting direction
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: that you never expected. So you know, swings and round events.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: So I just know, when rating something, sometimes you're regar
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: while this is really good. Then you become self conscious
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: and it can't quite sustain. Yeah, I think there's a okay,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: there's something inherent in the quality of rock and roll,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: And I've always counted pop music as the kind of
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: it's in the family of rock and roll, even if
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: it's not the boss, right, it's the kids, sister. Now,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: there's something about it which has to be dangerous. It
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: can't just be cute and safe and in a comfort
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: zone in all its life. Otherwise it doesn't do the
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: job it's meant to do, which is, you know, alert
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: you to possibilities and the revolutionary spirit of youth. And
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: those are the things that I think we work. We
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: kind of iron out of our work by overdoing it,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: over polishing it. And actually it's a kind of obvious
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: thing to say anyway, but as long as there's a
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: kind of danger that things could go terribly wrong in
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: what you're doing, that's the kind of balance to maintain. Okay,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: let's jump forward. Because you said rock and roll in youth. Okay,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: you're not a member of the youth now, so can
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: you capture the Z guys somehow and the music you
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: make it? I mean, I'm so lucky to be able
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: to put my finger on that nostalgic experience of it,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: you know, and say, wow, this was so incredibly amazing
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: for most of my life and I can still feel it,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: and I can still remind other people of it as well. Um,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I have to say, I'm having strange experience with contemporary
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: pop music. I was doing something incredibly mundane yesterday and
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: shopping for clothes in l A and I lost kind
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: of how many stores I was driven out of by
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: the inane music I was hearing. So and this deeply
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: troubles me because I'm someone who loves pop music, and
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: I can fight to find something in every piece of music.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: You know, if I'm generous, I can always find something
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: that's good in it. But the averages weren't great yesterday,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: I tell you so for me, it's lost something special,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: and it is that evocation of the spirit of change
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: in the world. In other words, rock and roll was
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: once a vehicle for social change. We did it because
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: we wanted the world to be a better place, not
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: because we wanted to be famous and rich and drive
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: a fast car, which for sure we're subsequent benefits, but
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: that's not the So do you know what I mean?
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Somehow that's become the reason you're speaking. You're preaching of
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: the converted here. But also I have to ask, as
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: you touched on this, is it a matter of hip hop?
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Is it a matter of the tier it away? What
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: is it that bugs you? No, it's neither of those things.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, they sound like good things to me, okay.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: I think one major thing, especially with pop music, is
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: that songs are written by committee now, and a few
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: members of the committee are often wearing a marketing hat.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: So in a general sense, you no longer trust the
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: voice of what's coming through the song. It's just made
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: to be catchy and insistent and make you stream it
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: for a while and then go somewhere else. In other words,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: it's it's ambitions have changed to Lee. Okay, do you
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: believe forgetting thirteen writers you were in a band. How
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: important is collaboration in the creative process. I think it
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: varies in importance from time to time, and I think
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: it's I think it's good for any creative people to
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: do both. I love working on my own, but I
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: also love working with other people, and sometimes it's very
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: clear to me that a different kind of work emerges
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: as a result of either practice. Do you think you're
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: driven to higher height if you're working with somebody else,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: I think you're driven away from your own repetitive thought
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: processes and into new ones. So it's a very valuable thing.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes I like to just produce other people
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: because it's not my ideas I'm just helping them to
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: get the best out of it, and that to me
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: is a kind of eye opening thing. Oh wow, they've
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: done something I never would have thought of doing, and
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: they turned around and and thank me. But actually I
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: should be thinking, Okay, so now you're on a massive
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: tour in the week of hold me now, good experience
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: or bad experience? Good? Yes? And it was it was
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: a NonStop party. And you know, I was Mr. Self
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: discipline because by this stage I was not drinking or
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: doing drugs or anything. I was very, very soberly observing
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: and enjoying everything that went down. So how did you
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: start doing drugs in alcohol? I just committed myself to
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: other activities and doing yoga and meditation and stuff like that.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: But what what inspired you to start the idea that
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: there was something beyond just having a good time, um
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and then waking up the next morning feeling bad about it.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: But also, there's a lot of stresses. People use drugs
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: because they can't fall asleep on the road. So sure,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: and there were times I was jealous, you know. And
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: interesting enough, that's how we got into country music, because
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: you know, down the back of the bus after a gig,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: everyone was partying, I will go and sit next to
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: the driver who was always listening to country. So you know,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: I ended up buying Stetler brother albums that I didn't
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: even know existed before that, you know. And now are
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: you in general are you a loner? No? No, I
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: like the company of people. But do you need your
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: alone time? Yes? Right, okay, so then that's a massive success.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Do you make any money, yes, but not all of
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: it fell into our bank accounts because we we ran
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the kind of um we around, the kind of operation
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: where if we had a successful album, we think great,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: now we can put an even bigger show on in
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: the next tour, you know, And we basically spent it
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: all on the band rather than ourselves. Um, So we
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: didn't make person more fortunes, perhaps as big as we
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: might have done. So then you make another record, another album. Yeah.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: The next one was his to Feature Days, and we
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: started off recording it ourselves, um in Paris um where
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: I actually became ill and things ground to our heart
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: and it was all a little bit of too much
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: pressure for me. And we were facing a tour that
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: I realized we wouldn't have the album ready for, so
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: we canceled this upcoming tour and thought, let's have a
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: rethink about this. And at that moment Narl Rodgers got
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: in touch with us and said he want to do
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: it with us. So that was an interesting kind of
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: morsel to to attract us to New York and do that.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: You got ill, But what was that about. I was
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: living in Paris at the time. I think I got
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: so stressed out with I was working in two studios simultaneously.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: It was driving me crazy, you know, and was all
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: to try and meet the false deadline of this tour
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: that had been booked on the assumption that we've finished
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: the album, and I simply wasn't ready to walk away
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: from the studios, so um, I had to kind of
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: cry halt to the process. And when it stopped, I
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: kind of collapse into an exhaustion that I've been holding
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: back on. I think, you know, because you do that.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I often do that at the end of a tour.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: I think this is going fine, and then the day
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: after a tour because the accumulated exhaustion, I've been in denial.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: I know exactly. You don't like sometimes I'm on the
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: road for weeks and I enjoy going from place to place,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: and as long as you're going from place to place,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: you're fine. It's who stay at one place you crash. Yeah,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: it's something like that. It's a denial of and of
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: course to travel into gig it's exciting, so you're living
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: on the adrenaline of that as well. It's the other problem.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: But when we finally said okay, let's let's hold the
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: album for a moment, wait until Nile is ready, because
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: he was working with someone else. Um, so we had
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: a little break during which time I really went downhill.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: And then the album comes out and it is not
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: as successful as Into the Gap, not quite no, but
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: it was still a pretty successful record and took us
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: around the world another time for a big tour. But
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: maybe the kind of narrative arc of our kind of
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: shiny pop success had begun, had gone over the peak,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: you know, and we had to turn into something else.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: And I think also at that point at the end
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: of that tours when Joe left, so we became the
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: two pieces. And why did he leave, Well, we'd have
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: to ask him that, but I think it probably he
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: felt they'd done enough and it wasn't going the way
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: he wanted to. I think he wanted to settle down
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: with his girlfriend and not be chasing around. I mean,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: because Atlanta and I were together in a relationship, it
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: felt easy for us to just speak constantly on the
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: move because we were together, you know. But he us
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: and squeezed out no, not at all, no, not in anyway. Okay,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: so he's out of the beard, and what's the next step.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Then we became the two piece stops to It and
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: went on to make UM three albums that way, which
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: was all fun. And but the nature of the music
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: business is changing, and I remember we kind of decided,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: for example, we didn't even want to tour anymore. We
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: just want to make videos, and kind of it seemed
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: like an exciting idea as an alternative to slugging around
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: the world, to actually play to people via a screen.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, now, I don't think that at all. I
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: think it's the most appalling way of trying to communicate
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: with an audience. But then it seemed like a revolutionary
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: idea that might bear fruit, and so we just kind
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: of talked ourselves out of touring UM And you know,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: if we hold that thought, it ended up being nearly
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: thirty years until I went on the stage and sang
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: those songs again. But you end up moving to New Zealand.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: What was the thought there, Well, Atlanta was from New Zealand.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: We had kids, and I think she quite rightly thought
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: that's a great place to raise them. Um, and let's
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: get away from this because us, for as long as
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: we're in London, we're part of the music business, you know,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: and so to retire from that, especially to retire from
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: mainstream pop music, it felt necessary to go and live
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: in the bush somewhere. And then the band turns into Babble. Yeah,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: but that had started in London before we left. We
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: did one Babble album which I really adore. Actually, that
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: first Babble album, there's something about finally throwing off the
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: shackles of having to write pop songs. So there must
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: have been a lot of stuff, a lot of accumulated
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: ideas that were never suitable for pop songs that got
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: an expression in that album. And of course it was
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: a strange thing. We we signed to a different company
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: at that point as well, to Warner, and changed our name,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: and I don't know quite how we pulled that off.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: They must have thought we were crazy, and we probably were.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: In terms of our careers. But we simply had lost
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: the desire to chase it anymore. You know. It was
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: about being creative, but not about Korea. Okay, but that
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: was nearly thirty years ago. Do you wake up one
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: day and say, holy sh it, I'm not in the
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: in the stream anymore? No, because I mean other water
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: has got under the British since then, and when I
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: have raised family and you know, I'm I'm thirty years older.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: So to me, in a way, the naive dream of
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: the career was something that that I started with when
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: I was a teenager and gave up when I was
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: thirty five or something. You know, I don't have that
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: dream anymore. Um. I do it more because I love
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: it rather than because it's going to turn into something amazing.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: So to be point blank, does the tops and twins
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: or did it throw off enough money that okay, it
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: all works? You mean, do I have to tour now
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: or there's been thirty years? You know? Did you have
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: to you know, what were you surviving for thirty years? Yeah? Yeah,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: there was it was. There was trickling royalty checks all
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: that time. I'm very lucky and it paid for me
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: to do other things in music which weren't earning money,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: like I have a project as a dub artist, as
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: an Indian classical artist, as um an experimental electronic artist,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: and as a film scorewriter as well. Now, apart from
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: the film scores, none of these other things were making money,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: you know. But I thought, finally I've earned the chance
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: to do these things which will always shove to one
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: side where we were being quote unquote successful, you know.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: So I spent thirty years doing that and I've had
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: a great time, and most of those projects are still
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: alive and kicking as well. It's just that they're so underground.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Most people don't know about them, and that because that's
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: the nature of underground, right, you don't get to hear
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: about But are you angry or upset that they don't
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: have as wider audience as they might know? No. In fact,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: for me, part of the relief of those projects is
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: that you don't have to spend a lot of time
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: promoting them. They just are what they are if people
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: happen upon them and like them, and that's fine. They
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: don't need to prove themselves in any other way. Whereas
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: there's something about being in a pop group the reverse
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: is true. You have to kind of push yourselves in
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: front of people all the time and maximize every effort
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: that you make. So you're in New Zealand. Ultimately the
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: relationship ends. How long ago was that, oh, sixteen seventeen
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: years okay? And then do you stay in New Zealand
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: or what are you doing for a while? And then
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: a ladder actually wanted to move back to London, and
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: so to be so that we could carry on being
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: parents to our kids, I agreed to go back to
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: London as well, And so about fifteen sixteen years ago,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: and moved back to London. And then you got remarried.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: How did you meet your new wife? She is American,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: but I had met her in New Zealand and we
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: still as a result of that, we because we both
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: have New Zealand in our histories, we started going back
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: there every winter, as I explained, and and so every
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: year we spent part of our part of our time there.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: So you have two kids, I have two, she has three,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: So we have five. Okay, but start with your two kids.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: What are they up to? My son is a musician.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Is he off the payroll? Just about? Yes, he's actually
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: quite successful. In his own particular niche of very underground
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: electronic experimental music. He lives in Estonia, really, which is
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: an interesting choice. I've been there at Talen. He doesn't.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: It's exciting and also scary with you all Russian buildings. Yeah,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: but anyway, he seems to be happy there. My daughter,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: who shield kick me for saying this, but she dropped
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: out of school and then spent a lot of time
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: changing the world one joint at a time. And then
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: suddenly one day she said, I want to go back
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: to university. So she's studying philosophy. So how did you
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: decide to go back on the road. Well, I had
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: so firmly put my pop music career behind me. I
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: was doing lots of other interesting things. Why would I
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: be even interested? And then one day I get a
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: call from a Mexican pop artist called Alex Sintech saying
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: he's got this crazy idea to write a song with
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: each of his childhood heroes, and I was one of them.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Would I do a fifty fifty deal with him? You know?
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: So I thought this is crazy. I was slightly intrigued,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: and then, to my total shame, I thought, well, it's Mexico,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: so no one will see me doing this, right. Um,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: it was a way for me to slip back into it.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: And once I've done it, I realized how which I
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: enjoyed it. So there I was, I think, this is great.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: I've just written a pop song again for the first
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: time in a long time. And then by chance I
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: got a call from Howard Jones saying he was going
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: on tour in America wanted another artist to go on
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: the bill, and was I interested? So how long ago
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: was it? This is like four and a half five years, OK,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: So I tentatively agreed and found myself just carried along
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: with his enthusiasm, and his management became my management as well,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: and so it's um, I had a kind of easy
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: re entry into all of that stuff, and and for me,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: it was just enjoyment, and I really really enjoyed. I
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: was very nervous at first, and I recall that the
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: first gig I did after all that time playing those songs,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: I thought, I'll put it on a piece of introduction music,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: you know, before we go on stage, and I chose
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: two to make an instrumental of one of the songs.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: I wasn't going to sing that, but everyone knew so
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: waiting backstage this piece of music. It was called We
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Are Detective, and it was which is actually on the record.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: It's a duet between Atlanta and myself. So I'm not
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: going to do that live, um so an instrumental version
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: would be fine. But my point is this, while I'm
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: backstage and I'm biting my finger ins and thinking, oh
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: my god, what have I done here? What have I
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: gotten into? I suddenly hear the audience singing the side,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: and I realized then that everything was going to be okay.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: This isn't a little club in Reading because we were
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: warming up the next day we played to people, but
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: this is our little warm up show, and a few
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: fans have heard about it and gotten in and it
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: was very very special and and exciting. But you see
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: what I mean, I saidn't realize it wasn't about me
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: getting it right. I had to show up and do
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: my job, but the audience was going to do half
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: the work for me anyway, because they just want to
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: hear those songs again for such a long time without them,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: you know, And from that point I was it was
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: just all fun. So how many gigs a year do
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: you do? Well? Last year we did eighty five concerts,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: which was as busy as any time we did in
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: the eighties. And so is that the right number for you?
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Maybe not every year. We're not doing this year, but
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: next year. Maybe always with Howard Jones, Oh no, no,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: I haven't played with him sensory, although I do bump
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: into him occasion at these eighties festivals that they have
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: in Europe, you know, which a great fun. But I
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: know most of this. This last year we've been touring
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: with Culture Club and the B fifty twos, which was
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: a good package as well, you know, as a kind
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: of party night, and everyone was behaving themselves pretty much
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: in your drug and alcohol free Oh yeah, okay. Now,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: one might say to go on the road and play
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: the old hits is nostalgia obviously pays? Well? Does it
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: bother you to be a jukebox of your old pulpit? Well,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: I think you've got to be completely pragmatic about this.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, I play new songs as well, but if
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: that's all I did, people just wander off to the bar.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: I mean I know that right, only the keenness of
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: the fans. So when I'm playing to a big mixed audience,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: some of whom have come to see other bands or
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: whatever in the festival. I've got to deliver my hits
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: otherwise they won't be satisfied. Luckily, I liked my hits
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: as well, so between them I can play old and new.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: And also, you know, nostalgia can be a dirty word
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: if that's all it is, but I think if it
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: evokes a shared experience, and what I find is that
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: there's a big emotional contact made with certain songs, and
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: that's a real privilege. I mean, that doesn't happen in
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: the course of normal life. To suddenly have the kind
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: of welling up of an emotion about something that you
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: did thirty five years ago with these people, that's a
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: kind of weird thing. It's very special and very precious
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: to me. Um and it gives me as also the
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: excuse to to tour and to play new songs and
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: make new records. Okay, but most acts from the seventies
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: and eighties, when they make new music, it doesn't gain
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: any big traction. Is that as a disincentive to make
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: new music, Well, yes it is. And of course the
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: background story to that is that people don't make money
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: out of records period. Now whereas they used to. So
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: it's all flipped now now, you know, the hardened business
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: manager would say, well, you make a record to sell tickets,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: whereas on the old days you're toured to sell your record.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Now that's changed everything in a way. But I mean,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: I think if you have it within you. I didn't
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: know that I was going to be making a new
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: album year and the year before, but I ended up
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: doing it because I'm back in that saddle. You know.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: It's like it seems like the normal and natural thing
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: to do, and I just love pop music. There's something
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: incredibly special, given that I've been doing all these other
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: kinds of music. There's something very special about the economy
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: and directness of pop music that for me is like
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: solving a crossword puzzle or something. You know that there's, um,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: there's an angle to it that really satisfies my brain some.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: But you can't climb the mountaintop every time. No no, no,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: no no, and nor should you want to. I mean,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: that's like I said, that's the game for the teenager too,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: to lure them into this in the first place. This
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: the dream of being adored and famous and having won songs.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Do well, Okay, but you think you could still write
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: a part here that would be known by most of
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: the public. Yes. Yes, although, of course, as we touched
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: on earlier, the nature of pop music has changed. So
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I can write in that particular way,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: but I seem to be able to write in a
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: way that the eighties audience likes, at least because it
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: reminds them. I suppose of the kind of formal organization
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: and of of a three and a half minute pop
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: song that we used to write back then. We'll staying
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: down this top because rock did well. The brutal answer
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: is yes, and it's really unfortunate. But it may be
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: because the Internet has taken over from you know it.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Put it this way, rock and roll was once an uncontained, uncontrollable,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: urgent energy that disurged its way through our culture and
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: through our society. Slowly, but slowly, it was captured, controlled
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: by corporate interests, and so it can't claim to be
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: the very thing that defined its necessity in the first place,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: which was to be rebellious. Now it's just people dressing
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: up and looking rebellious. Now things have changed, and not
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: only in that respect, I think in black music, especially
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: in R and B and hip hop. Di's still a
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: rebellious nous. There's still a vitality which hasn't quite been captured,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: although I think it's teetering really closely. Um. But in
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: terms of straight ahead pop music, it's kind of sad
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: to see it go for the uncontained, dangerous elements of
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: our culture all living in the internet now and not
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: in the grooves of records. That's just the sad fact.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: So what's the whole from music? Well, I remember music
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: was there before rock and roll, and it will be
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: here a long time after it, because it's a fundamental,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: primal urge of us to make sound and communicate and
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: enjoy it. And nearer I live in France, there's a
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: cave where twenty thousand plus years ago pe All went
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: in to paint pictures of large animals. So that's the
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: one that where the German director made a movie about
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: no that was chove, which you can't go into because
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: they're very frightened that the you know, the humidity of
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: the and the michael organisms in our breath will destroy it,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: which they would. So now this place you can go
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: into because it's they discovered graffiti from the seventeenth century,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: so they realized people have been going there a lot,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: you know, So it's very carefully controlled. They have carbon
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: monoxide and dioxide sensors. As soon as the temperature rises
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: by three degrees, you're out all this kind of stuff.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: But I go back repeatedly because half a mile into
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: this mountain there's a place where there's lots of amazing
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: pictures of buffalo by some ibecks, horses and so and
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: so forth. Why did they go so far to paint
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: their pictures. It's because that's where the reverberation is at
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: its most glorious. They went there to sing. It's been
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: going on that long, you know. And that's not even
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: an old cave. There are their their cave art examples
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: going about forty and even sixty thousand years now, and
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: it's highly likely that they were getting high and singing
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: before they painted. Now, being an Englishman, what do you
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: think about politics relative to music and the sixties? Certainly
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: music drove the culture and now there's certainly a lot
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: of stuff to sing about. How come we don't have
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: that same the same type of music with the same impact. Well,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: that's probably because I mean, I think there are people
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: writing interesting and pointed and songs of commentary and criticism,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: but they don't end up being in the charts in
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: the way I mean. That was the amazing thing about
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: the golden age of rock and roll was the bands
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: that were our gods were also our cultural critics, and
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: we sought out a rebellion through exactly what they did.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: And now people are playing it safe. There's also less
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: of a culture of criticism. We don't know what's true
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: anymore for a start, anyway, so it's difficult to put
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: your finger on what it is that we want to say. Um,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: and so maybe maybe that's got something to do with it.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: But you're you're you're living in France, which is a
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: nation of some level of turmoil, and certainly UK with
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Brexit they have some turmoil. What's that experience like? It's troubling,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: and of course we're all living on a planet which
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: is presently doomed, so you know, choose your level of turmoil.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a worrying time. But I don't see
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: the voice or hear the voices of both criticism and
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: a call to arms from the world of music anymore
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: like I used to. I'll read them on the internet,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: but I won't hear them in the songs. And so
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: what is it like personally the arc of your life.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: You have this great success thirty odd years ago and
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: now it's thirty years later. Does it Does it depress
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: you that you have this great success then and now
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: you're not as well known? No? No, no, um. I
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: don't think that being well known was ever really something
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: that I particularly bothered about. Was just a side effect.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: You know, you do end up kind of measuring your
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: stats on by some of those metrics I guess, you know,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: chart positions and stuff. It's just an inherent in pop music.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: But that was never really what got me out of
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: bed every morning. It was more about making music. What
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: gets you out of bed today. Music. So if you're
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: making music and it's only for a tiny audience, you
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: feel like you're pushing the envelope. Everything is okay, Yes
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: I have something to do. If there's an idea or
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: thought of last night, and I'll wake up thing and
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: right I'm going to do that today, then that keeps
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: me going. And I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: which I think to some extent I probably earned. But
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: it just turned out that way, you know, So what
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: can I say? It's a it's an odd situation to
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: be describing. But I know people whose careers didn't wane
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: in the same way as mine, and others who's have
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: disappeared and tiny without any trace, you know. So I'm
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: just lucky to be doing what I'm doing. Okay, I
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: don't hear any negative negativity. Are you just that up
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: a person? Are we just not hearing you know? I
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: think we're all the position of choosing whether we want
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: to complain about our lives or actually get on with
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: the good things. Don't you think it is to some
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: extent or choice. All there is is what happens and
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: then how we feel about it. So we can't change
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: what happens, but we can change what we feel about it.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: But also we can decide to what degree we want
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: to engage. Well, all of us should engage a hundred
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: percent with everything. There's no debate about that in my mind. Well, today,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: you know a lot of people sit at home and
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: they engage with Netflix, which is not the same thing.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: We had to go to clubs, We had to get
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: out of the house. I think it was also part
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: of the whole excitement. I'm a terrible example of someone
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: who I don't really engage with culture directly like that.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: I don't have a TV set, I don't have Netflix account.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: I guess I have on mobile phone. And that's about
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: us far us I make. I make music with computers,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: you know, which is a kind of strange admission. But
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: other than that, I just wonder crashing into one lamp
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: post after another. So when you're not making music, what
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: are you doing? That doesn't leave much time? Actually? Okay,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: so you're still as driven as you once were. Yes,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: and that's been consistent for the last forty years. And
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: I think part of it is having several projects. So
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: when I finished with pop music, I go to International
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Observer my dub thing, or meet with the Indian musicians
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: and write with them or whatever. So other than that,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: when I go back to France, I have a garden,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: you know, I sit in the garden. I think this
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: is great for a few weeks, and then then I
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: get edgy face. I want to go touring again. Okay,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: you now, I mean your manager should sent me a
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: video where you are performing with three women, everybody wearing white.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, how long has that been? The paradigm, the
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: Women or the White. When I decided I was gonna
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: get back into touring the pop music again, I got
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: in touch with my old drummer, Jeff Dougma, and he said, yes, sure,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: I'd love to do that up. And then he's incredibly
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: big in some kind of heavy metal band in Japan
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: or something and had a stadium gig coming up, and
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: so he had to drop out of my tour and
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: he said, but never mind, I've got this this person
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: in mind for you, And it turned out to be
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: Emily Dolan Davis, a female drummer um and then a
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: keyboard player, Amanda Kramer from from the Psychedelic First she
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: came along and wanted to work with me, and then
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: another and we thought, this is turning into an all
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: female band. Why fight it? And then I discovered, hey,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: it's actually something really nice about the group dynamics of
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: women working together as opposed to the kind of tired,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: old male rock and roll cliches that happened on the bus,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: you know, two weeks into any tour. So I've just
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: developed an affection for working with women. And also for
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: the first two years we wore black and then one
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: a I thought, if we have to go on in
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: the afternoon or look at some festival or there's no
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: follow spot or something, people at the back of why
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: don't we wear white and they'll see us? And it works.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: Certainly we're white at night too. Yes, okay. There was
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: a video of this video that You're me and Andrew said,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: and everybody is singing along to the song will me now?
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. But also it seemed like
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: some of the audience was young. Well, they either another
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: song from radio or their parents have forced it upon them,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: they've heard it at home. I don't know what what
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: is this, because otherwise you'd have to seek out that.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: But isn't that true of the younger generation these days,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: is that their taste chronologically is wide and incredibly. I mean,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: my kids listened to the latest pop music and like
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: early blues recordings side by side and everything in between.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the one brilliant thing about the
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: Internet and music is that it's put at their disposal,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: at the touch of the button, every single piece of
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: recorded music. And that's incredible thing, so much that you
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: can't possibly listen to it all before you die, which
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: we never had, and we would, you know, spend a
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: long time traveling to dingy records stores and going through
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: crates in order to maybe find the thing we were
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: looking for and often failing. So now it's so easy,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: you know. Um, So maybe maybe that's the way they
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: find it. I don't know, or do they hearken back
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: because they can feel that excitement that they don't get
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: in today's pop music. Oh, I don't know if it's
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: competing with today's pop music in that sense directly. Some
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: people just go to festivals because they like music and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: they listen to anything. Um. I hope it's because they've
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: in some way heard it and think it's nice and
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: I want to hear more. So what's the charge? I mean,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: there must be an amazing charge being on stage and
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: experiencing that. Yeah, you have no idea, man, it's it's
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: the one thing that I'm addicted to, really, is that
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: emotional contact when when the crowd starts singing your song
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: and you realize, you know what my job has done.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: It's over to you guys. Um. It makes me deeply
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: happy and it kind of reverberates back through the ages.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: As I said, there's a contact with something that we
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: did a long time ago, and that kind of nostalgia
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: for me, it's not the kind of vacuous living in
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: the past nostalgia, but there's something very present. And it
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: also gives me the feeling that the optimism which we
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: still felt in the eighties about the world in general
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: hasn't died totally. And it's been through some hard times,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: but it hasn't died totally. Well, if you say you
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: live for that hit on stage, how do you feel
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: about the thirty years you weren't on stage? Believe in me,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: I was totally happy not to be doing it. I
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: was doing other things and looking elsewhere. But I must
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: also admit that sometimes I think, why did I wait?
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: So I could have been having fun all this time,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: you know, with this particular thing. But it wasn't that
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: I wasn't enjoying what I was doing. So it's in
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: a way it's a kind of an old question. Well,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: I can wriggle out of that one in my own mind.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: On that note, we've been talking to Tom Bailey of
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: the Toms and Twins, touring multiple dates around the world now, Tom,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: thanks so much for me on the podcast. It's an
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: absolute pleasure.