Steve Lamacq’s BBC Radio 6 Roundtable review programme played Deeper Understanding this evening and as well as discussing the record, writer Keith Cameron mentioned that he has just interviewed Kate about the new album for a forthcoming Mojo Magazine article. Listen again here (33:28 until 44:22, available till 14th April). Thanks to Louise (who also sourced the album package photo for us) for this news!
Category: Interviews
The BBC1 Northern Ireland TV show “The Trouble With….Health” will feature footage from Kate’s appearance on Looking Good, Feeling Fit in 1981. From John McGurk: “First off, you see Kate Bush, in a fitness studio, with two male dancers, exercising/dancing to Sat In Your Lap! The second segment is a short clip of Kate talking to presenter, Richard Stilgoe about the clothes she wears, while dancing/exercising. A limp, trivial question about why she is wearing “rubber” trousers is dealt by Kate with patience and good grace. I doubt that this footage has ever surfaced since its original screening 29 years ago.” Viewers in Northern Ireland can set their recorders when it screens on Monday August 9, at 10.35pm. A lower quality clip of the original segment can be seen at Youtube here. (thanks John)
Fans across the UK & Ireland have been scouring newsagents today to find the exclusive cover featuring Kate, one of twenty covers to celebrate 20 years of Q Magazine. Kate’s interview in the new Q magazine is a relaxed and witty affair accompanied by a charming new colour portrait of Kate (once again by Trevor Leighton). In the interview Kate reminisces with the magazine over the last 20 years. Her high point? “Well it’s got to be having my son Bertie” Her low point was of course the death of her mother Hannah which Kate describes as “like the end of the world”.
Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnstons is going to be overjoyed to hear that his idol considers him to be one of her favourite artists of the last 20 years, as is Rolf Harris. Kate jokes about how 20 years ago she thought the record company’s insistence on a greatest hits package was “a crap idea…and of course it turned out to be my biggest selling record”. Kate confesses to drinking too much tea, to being “really exhausted” after Aerial came out and she definitely hopes the next album won’t take 12 years, in fact she reckons she could get the next album done “in six weeks”. We’ll wait and see! Lovely to see such a warm, witty and talented artist chosen as one of Q’s 20 icons. The subtitle to the article is “National Treasure.” Indeed. The kind folks at Q Magazine have provided me with a high-res image of this highly collectable cover for you here. (Thanks to Stephen Peck at Q) UPDATE: Also thanks to Q Magazine for a high-res download of the “clean” cover photo of Kate click here.
The next issue Q Magazine will be published with 20 different covers in celebration of the title’s 20th birthday. Each cover will feature a musical icon, including Kate. Each artist has given the magazine an exclusive photoshoot and interview, in which they recount their personal high and low points from the past two decades. The issue also includes Q’s nominations for the best 20 albums and songs released during its lifetime. Editor Paul Rees said: “The 20th anniversary of Q, the essential music guide, is a landmark moment, and therefore we were determined to mark it with a landmark publishing event. I believe we have done so. I can think of few magazines anywhere in the world who could exclusively photograph, interview and do separate covers with 20 of the biggest and most iconic stars in their world. That Q has done so is befitting for a magazine with its rich history and stature.” The 20 stars in full are: Damon Albarn, Richard Ashcroft, Beyonce, Johnny Borrell, David Bowie, Ian Brown, Kate Bush, Dido, Noel Gallagher, David Gilmore, Dave Grohl, Madonna, Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Britney Spears, Michael Stipe, Pete Townshend, U2 and Paul Weller. The issue goes on sale on 30th September. Subscribers to the magazine will receive a specially produced edition that features all 20 different cover images. We will have Kate’s special cover on here as soon as it surfaces – meanwhile here’s a picture of 4 of the special editions…
On November 2nd Mojo magazine publish what seems to be one of only two Aerial interviews with Kate (BBC Radio 2 have secured the second). The Guardian have published extracts from this interview with Tom Doyle here. The Mojo article presents Kate as “the antithesis of the mysterious recluse” which the tabloid press is so ridiculously fond of portraying her as. “…here, in Kate Bush’s home, there is a 47-year-old mother of one, dressed in a workday uniform of brown shirt, jeans and trainers, hair clipped up in practical busy-busy fashion, all wary smiles and nervous laughter…around us there is evidence of a very regular, family-shaped existence – toys and kiddie books scattered everywhere, a Sony widescreen with a DVD of Shackleton sitting below it.
Atop the fireplace hangs a painting called Fishermen by James Southall, a tableau of weather-beaten seadogs wrestling with a rowing boat; it is soon to be familiar as part of the inner artwork of Aerial. Balanced against a wall in the office next door is a replica of the Rosebud sledge burned at the dramatic conclusion of Citizen Kane, as commissioned for the video of Bush’s comeback single, King of the Mountain, and brought home as a gift for her seven-year-old son Bertie. “I go out of my way to be a very normal person and I just find it frustrating that people think that I’m some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world.” Her voice notches up in volume. “Y’know, I’m a very strong person and I think that’s why actually I find it really infuriating when I read, ‘She had a nervous breakdown’ or ‘She’s not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature’.” If the outside world was wondering whether Kate Bush would ever finish her long-awaited album, then it was a feeling shared by its creator. “Oh yeah,” she sighs. “I mean, there were so many times I thought, I’ll have the album finished this year, definitely, we’ll get it out this year. Then there were a couple of years where I thought, I’m never gonna do this. If I could make albums quicker, I’d be on a roll wouldn’t I? Everything just seems to take so much time. I don’t know why. Time…evaporates…for the last 12 years, I’ve felt really privileged to be living such a normal life,” she explains. “It’s so a part of who I am. It’s so important to me to do the washing, do the Hoovering. Friends of mine in the business don’t know how dishwashers work. For me, that’s frightening. I want to be in a position where I can function as a human being. Even more so now where you’ve got this sort of truly silly preoccupation with celebrities. Just because somebody’s been in an ad on TV, so what? Who gives a toss?”
Kate discusses the track Mrs Bartolozzi: “A couple of people who heard it early on,” she says, dipping a spoon into her avocado, “they either really liked it or they found it very uncomfortable. I liked the idea of it being a very small subject. Clothes are such a strong part of who a human being is. Y’know, skin cells, the smell. Somebody thought that maybe there’d been this murder going on, I thought that was great. I love the ambiguity.” The shiver-inducing stand-out track on Aerial, however, comes at the end of the first disc. A Coral Room is a piano-and-vocal ballad that Bush admits she first considered to be too personal for release, dealing as it does with the death of her mother, a matter that she didn’t address at the time in any of the songs on The Red Shoes. “No, no I didn’t,” she says. “I mean, how would you address it? I think it’s a long time before you can go anywhere near it because it hurts too much. I’ve read a couple of things that I was sort of close to having a nervous breakdown. But I don’t think I was. I was very, very tired. It was a really difficult time.” Read the exclusive 16-page interview with Kate in MOJO magazine, on sale on Wednesday November 3rd.
“If I’m really honest what I find so exciting is that people want to listen to my music when I’m not thrust in their faces. In this fast-moving world, people do forget, but they’re incredibly patient with me” (Kate Bush, London, Nov ’01)
Kate fans in the London area have been the first to get their hands on the new Q Magazine and Kate interview. Kate is pictured looking very happy and relaxed and speaks of how life’s been treating her since The Red Shoes album, her break from making music and her obvious happiness now with Bertie and his dad, guitarist Danny McIntosh. Kate admits that she found the immediate aftermath of The Red Shoes difficult.
“I needed to stop working because there were a lot of things I wanted to look at in my life. I was exhausted on every level. There was part of me that didn’t want to work. I’d got to a point where it was something I didn’t feel good about. It was as if I was testing myself to see if I could write, but I didn’t like what I was writing. I thought, No, if you don’t want to do it, it will be rubbish. Basically, the batteries were completely run out and I needed to restimulate again.”
The writer of the article sums up Kate’s story of the last few years: ‘Eventually, Bush tentatively set about writing her eighth album. Then she found herself pregnant. The father was Danny McIntosh, responsible for most of the guitars on The Red Shoes, although in the late 70s he was a member of hard rockers Bandit …three years ago, 
Bush gave birth to Albert, destined to go through life as Bertie…little Bertie has his father’s hair (auburn), his mother’s eyes and the broadest grin you ever did see. Bush’s guard comes tumbling down.
“Although I hadn’t always wanted children, I had for a long time. People say that magic doesn’t exist but I look at him, think I gave birth to him and I know that magic does exist.”‘
“I am really happy. I feel I’ve got the balance right where Bertie comes first and then the album. Some people say the best work comes from suffering: I don’t agree with this. Hounds Of Love is one of my best albums and I was very happy then. I’m very happy with Danny. I feel very lucky and that I’ve achieved a lot of the things I was looking for after the last album.”
And what’s it like (the new album)?
“I’m not sure, because I don’t get to listen to it. You see, with my other albums I used to listen to stuff such a lot. It’s very different now because with Bertie I don’t have the time. I’m quite pleased with it, though. There’s quite a lot of it done, but I can’t really talk about something that’s not finished, it’s like talking about an event that hasn’t happened.”
Worth pointing out, and perhaps it’s not illustrated fully by the quotes selected in the news piece below (Dec 5th), but Kate makes it very clear that she perceived a distinct sense ofdisappointment from people with the way The Red Shoes album, and particularly the accompanying film, The Line, The Cross & The Curve, were received. Kate says in relation to the 1993 film:
“I shouldn’t have done it, I was so tired. I’m very pleased with four minutes of it, but I’m very disappointed with the rest. I let down people like Miranda Richardson who worked so hard on it. I had the opportunity to do something really interesting and blew it. Also I was viewed in quite a negative light at that point, more so than after The Dreaming where I was viewed as some kind of nutter. It dissipated my energy severely and threw me into a state of severe exhaustion. You just get worn down…I slept, I spent a lot of time sleeping, enjoying bad televison.”
The article is entitled “The Big Sleep”, and the writer John Aizlewood found Kate in “robust” health, and tells Kate “all people care about is whether you’re happy”. Kate has obviously been through a rough time, and has come out of it the other side re-energised. As for when the new album may be released, Kate has to admit that she can’t give a definite date: “It’s hard to say when because it’s a matter of how much time I get to work on what’s left to do, so I couldn’t actually measure it in time.”
[This edition of Q also features an excellent cover CD, featuring “the best music of 2001”, with REM, Ed Harcourt, Starsailor, Air, Daft Punk, The Strokes etc…as if you needed any more reason to buy it…Q magazine – music fans, and especially Kate fans salute you! (Huge thanks to Dam Bryce, additional thanks to Reza Sayeed)]
November 11th: As we await the new interview with Kate in next month’s Q here is the transcript of the mini-interview with Kate from the Q Awards on Monday 29th October (from the current edition – see Nov 9th news):
Where are you from and what are you on? I’ve just come from the stage where I’ve picked up my Q Award. I’m not eating anything because I’m too excited. I’ve been drinking water. Bottled, still water of course. What was the best thing about 2001? Giving up smoking, but I’m not a fanatical anti-smoker. What was the last thing you won? An inflatable hammer a few months ago at a fair. Actually, it wasn’t me who won it–it was my son Bertie. I can’t tell you where the fair was because I don’t really want to.Who is the best act in the world today? My son Bertie when he’s doing his Elvis impression. Presley or Costello? Er, Presley. I think. What’s the last record you bought? The Bob the Builder one. Not the Mambo thing, the one before that whatever it is called. Was it for me? Of course it wasn’t. I don’t really keep up with things like that. What’s next? Well, right now a few of us are going for a little drink somewhere. No, I can’t tell you where. More generally, I have to finish off my new album.
The January edition of Q magazine (published December 7th) will feature “an exclusive, revealing new interview” with Kate. Meanwhile, the current issue of Q has just been published with articles about the awards and some photos of Kate arm in arm with Johnny Rotten. 
The magazine’s website says that this current issue features “pictures, anecdotes and, of course, the results of this year’s bash. See John Lydon share a sofa with Kate Bush…” (thanks to Michael Leitz). Whether next month’s interview is a strong indication of more new album stirrings or purely a reflection on the award the magazine has given to Kate, we have yet to see. It seemingly coincides with the delayed Women In Rock poll results, so it may mean that Kate has done well in that vote…in any case it’s an event in itself, the first published interview with Kate since 1994!