In 1980 future Prog writer Kris Needs, then the editor of punk magazine ZigZag, asked for an interview with Kate Bush, who’d just achieved her commercial height. The pair established an unlikely connection which led to three in-depth conversations over five years as she established control of her art. Needs summarised his impressions of the mercurial musician for Prog.
In retrospect, my decision to stick Kate Bush on the cover of ZigZag magazine in 1980 was an act of sheer punk-style defiance. it was so unlikely that she had to be persuaded it wasn’t going to be another stitch-up before she agreed to do our interview. Yet once the ice was broken, it led to further encounters that she’d described as the most in-depth interviews of her formative decade.
Launched by Pete Frame in 1969 as an underground fanzine, ZigZag had become the UK’s first serious music monthly by the time he appointed me as editor in 1977. The punk revolution was in full swing and I reported from the frontline on The Clash, Ramones, Siouxsie And The Banshees, etc. In that era dominated by strict musical categories, punk soon became a blinkered parody of itself, motivating Johnny Rotten to voice his love of Peter Hammill and then Bush.
Coming from the John Peel school of non-existent musical barriers, I felt a fearlessly idiosyncratic talent like Kate deserved support, rather than the disparaging treatment she was getting from the music papers. Knowing I’d attract abuse from punkier elements, I requested an interview.
Predictably, she was sceptical; but finally I won a slot after the Daily Express on the Friday afternoon following Never For Ever’s September 8 release. Arriving at EMI's Manchester Square offices, I saw jubilant staff popping champagne corks, celebrating Kate’s album entering the UK chart at No.1 – making her the first female solo artist to reach the top spot with a non- compilation set.
Smiling in an emerald green top, the lady herself was perched on a couch in a side room. She was instantly friendly and likeable, chatting away in her south London accent, softly but deliberately outlining the creative ethos she would now pursue, displaying a maturity beyond her 21 years. We seemed to hit it off and ended up speaking for over 90 minutes. At one point she said with a laugh, “It’s like two psychiatrists talking!”
I was captivated by Kate’s mix of down-to-earth honesty and humour, steely determination and wide-eyed sense of wonder at her chart success. “I still can’t believe it!” she said. “Every time I tell someone I feel like I’m lying. I couldn’t have asked for more for such an important new step in what I’m doing. The other two albums are so far away they’re not true. They really aren’t me any more.”
Although Kate would always appreciate The Kick Inside as her entry point, she felt vindicated over the album she’d spent a year conceiving and recording. More importantly for her, she’d discovered how she’d work from now on. “When you stereotype artists you always expect a certain kind of sound,” she said. “As a person I’m changing all the time. The first album is very much like a diary of me at that time – I was into a very high range. The same with the second album. I feel this is perhaps why this one is like starting again. It’s like the first album on a new level; much more under control.”
As Kate often stressed, she was finding her feet on her first two albums, with Lionheart a hasty follow-up demanded by the record company that didn’t fare so well. Never For Ever saw her coming of age in the studio. Of course, there were clashes with EMI, who wanted the jaunty Babooshka as first single – but she insisted on the astonishing Breathing, sung from the perspective of a post-apocalypse foetus reluctant to enter a ruined world. She grinned widely when I described this track as her creative breakthrough.
“It’s great to hear you say that. From my own viewpoint it’s the best thing I’ve ever produced. The song says something real for me, whereas many of the others haven’t quite got to the level that I would like them to reach – though they’re trying to.”
Sometimes during those marathon conversations it felt like she was thinking aloud or working something out as her creative muse swam with new possibilities and pivotal moves like deciding between making a new album or doing another tour. As her studio experience increased, the answer was always going to be recording.
Kate mentioned the concept of “stating presence,” citing what was happening to punk as an example of not being sucked into the music biz vortex or being controlled. “It’s so bloody easy to be forgotten. It’s so easy to go under unless you fight. Everyone has to fight, and there are different ways of fighting. I’m definitely trying to state my presence.
“It’s important for me to do things on a one-woman basis: I seem to work, produce and create better as one entity, then involve others for feedback. I feel I’ve only just begun. I’m not doing what I want to do musically yet. I’m getting there, but it’s nowhere near to what I actually want.”
The real pressures of success come from the inside. I don’t intend to let it make me go under and lose everything
Did she feel success was getting in the way? “When I’m in the studio I’m not aware of my success. It’s only really when you do the rounds of promotion – things like this. But the real pressures of success, I think, come from the inside. I don’t intend to let pressures of success make me go under and lose everything. Pressures of life, yes, I think that’s something that can happen to anyone. There’s nothing you can do about it except to try and be as strong as you can.
“Success is a label other people like to put on you so they can go, ‘Success!’ I don’t feel successful. There’s so much I have to do to feel that I’ve really done what I want to. My success is in terms of fulfilment and perfection of my art. That’s something I never will reach. I have to accept that.”
Trailered by the contagious big drum whoopee of Sat In Your Lap, 1982’s The Dreaming saw Kate finally producing herself, with engineer Nick Launay fresh off Public Image Ltd’s heavily percussive Flowers Of Romance. They experimented wildly with tribal percussion patterns, skyscraper vocal overdubs and Fairlight synth, running up huge studio bills at Townhouse, Abbey Road and Advision that led to the construction of Kate’s hi-tech home studio.
Heralded by the Aussie outback exoticism of its title single only reaching No.48, The Dreaming was Kate’s most densely complex work yet, each song creating its own atmosphere, whether referencing Houdini’s secrets or the Vietnam war.
This time meeting at EMI’s offices, Kate seemed less ebullient, somewhat drained but cautiously defiant about how the record would go down with fans. “I don’t know how they’re going to take it. I think the people who’ve understood where I’ve been so far are going to be into it. They’re expecting something different each time, so it’s almost predictable in that respect.
I’m going where I want and I’m going to keep going for it… This is the first time that I actually enjoy listening to my voice
“But I think a lot of people won’t like it. They probably won’t understand what it’s about. I find the more I write the stuff, the less I worry about this stage, and the better it is. On the second and third albums there were lots of times when I was writing a song and kept thinking what people were going to think of it. I’d rather not do that, and lose some of the people who are into my music, because I’m really doing what I want to do. I’m going where I want and I’m going to keep going for it. I’ve no idea what’s going to happen. This is the first one where I feel like I’ve actually got somewhere.”
When she asked me what I thought of the album, I mentioned its cinematic quality, new resonance in her voice and tiers of vocal overdubs. After giggling, but taking in my garbled first impressions, she became quite animated, declaring: “This is the first time that I actually enjoy listening to my voice. It’s a big breakthrough. I think it’s the vocal cords as you get older. I can actually put some balls into my voice for the first time. It’s exciting! It’s like a progression. I’ve never written songs as long as these before.”
She knew her relentless experimenting was costing her fans: the album dropped out of the charts after entering at No.3, selling around 60,000 compared to The Kick Inside’s million-plus. After turning down Fleetwood Mac’s invitation to support them in the US, she responded to everything by taking three years to record her next album.
Hounds Of Love sold 10 times more than The Dreaming in the first nine months, and would become regarded as her creative pinnacle. It was a moving masterstroke to unveil it to the media at London’s Planetarium – an event I attended with my flatmate Youth, who’d played bass on Big Sky.
Our third epic interview took place in an anonymous hotel as Kate prepared for that evening’s appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test. She was dressed in the same black jacket and lace blouse that she would wear on TV, while giving noticeably shorter answers to the host’s questions than to mine.
It can seem like what you’re mad. It’s not until hours later it seems like it could work. You need to be in control to get away with that stuff
She described the album’s lengthy gestation as both brilliant realisation and cumulative triumph on the first stage of the quest she’d begun five years earlier. “The main thing for me has been evolving with the production,” she explained. “Now I don’t have to compromise with other people, and that’s brilliant because you can explore things. It can seem like what you’re doing is mad. It’s not until a few hours later that it seems like it could work. You need to be in control to get away with that stuff!
“Work just possesses my life and everyone around me is dragged into it. I don’t go out much because I don’t have time!” It seemed to suit her: “I do get a bit scared of exposure. That’s what frightens me; coming out of work and saying [adopts cheesy grin], ‘Here’s the new album!’ It’s a bit frightening how exposed you are everywhere; being on the side of a bus when it goes past. I hate that! You have to laugh at it to survive.” After a thoughtful pause, she concluded, “Everything’s gone so well but it really is little me on the end, trying to keep up with it all.”
Before parting we swapped addresses, and sent each other Christmas cards three months later. I was quite stunned when a motorcycle messenger dropped off a Hounds Of Love sweatshirt from Kate.
Inevitably, life took over and I haven’t seen or heard from her since. Now I’m just happy that the beautifully driven and grounded artistic genius I spent those brief but magical afternoons with continued to stand her ground, see through her dreams – and lives happily ever after.
