Tom Bailey

or something, you know. And I actually did get to the stage where someone was creeping up behind me with a pair of scissors, and I thought, you know, this could end up in a sad way, so I cut it off myself. And then everyone said you can't do that. And I think for a while I had a fake one, but it didn't last long. I what a question to start with, buff right? You know, as I say that, that was back, you know, before the Internet, when you fought for every tidbit from the rock press and we

uh strayed to the important issue exactly. So you're in l A. Now, what are you up to these days? Well, I just spent the Southern Hemisphere summer in New Zealand, which is what I do every year, and I'm heading back to Europe, so this trip brings me halfway home. And okay, so how many gigs did you do uh in New Zealand, Australia, etcetera. None. I did one private gate for a friend, just to help them out. And okay, well let's go back. You live there, now, that's one

of your houses. Yeah? Yeah, Well what I do is I live in France, Okay, in the mountains, in the mountains, like the Alps, the Pyrenees. Oh really, down by Spain, that's right. Are you a skier? No, I'm not, because we're diverting from the story here. But I broke both my thumbs on a ski slope once and I couldn't play the piano for six months, and that kind put me off. Whenever I've tried subsequently, I just think I'm not enjoying this. How long ago did you break your thumbs?

Twenty years? Okay? So you basically live in France, okay, in the mountains, but it gets so cold and like it goes to minus twenty five in the winter, right, Okay, this is an old stone house it's not a place to be when it gets to minus study five, right, And we also have a place in New Zealand, so it makes a lot of sense to go and catch the southern summer then, and which I landed New Zealand and the North Island in Auckland City, right, Okay, So

where are you from? Originally in the north of England. I was born in Hannif. I was kind of brought up in South Yorkshire, North Derbyshire. Okay. Now, if you live in England, we're familiar with all those things. For the English listeners. For an American listener, where he is, okay, conjure up a kind of bleak, northern, grim industrial landscape with me standing in the middle of it. And what did your parents do for a living? Um? That all

my family medical? My fat it was a public health epidemiologist. My mother was the nursing matron of a hospital. My younger sister is a sexual health doctor. My elder sister after care bone specialist. So what happened to you? But if there's anything wrong with you, come to me first. Okay. So you're in the middle child, I am, yeah, okay, So you grow up? Is there music in the house. Yeah, very much, especially from my father, you know, who was a kind of keen amateur organist, actually a kind of

church organ and choir guy. Um. He wasn't particularly religious. I think he grew up in a kind of small northern industrial community where you had to go to church otherwise you weren't part of the community. Um, and he chose to get involved in that side of things rather than the religious side, which seems like a smart move to me, I think. And I did a similar thing, you know. I went to church and I was in

the choir and learning about all of that stuff. Okay, we're similar ages, and there was certainly no in the in America. What you did. We had a transistor radio. You put it under your pillow and you listen to the baseball game, okay, and then all of a sudden the Beatles hit. Okay. What was it like living in

the UK because we're of similar ages. Well, we didn't have baseball, that's for sure, but we did have offshore pirate radio stations like Luxembourg and things like that, which became the thing to listen to under your pillow, and it was an incredibly exciting moment. Um. I can remember hearing bands like the Beatles for the first time in that very way, and it changed everyone's lives, right, It certainly changed our lives. I mean, we're here in America,

we're still running another fumes of the Beatles. So you listen to the Beatles, you're like seven years old. Does that incite you to play or want to make music? No? Infact I was a little bit of a stick in them because I had a classical music training, right, so it was a little bit of an unbearable snob at seven years old and refusing to to really enjoy what was happening with the Beatles. I got into the Middles a little late. So after the after the kind of

public song era, I was into the psychedelic era. Really, Now, were you into any other bands at that time? The Rolling Stones where there's a plethora of British as we call British invasion acts, so many things, I mean, the Beatles first, to be honest, down the Stones, and then into all of the kind of counterculture bands of the time when rock and roll meant something to do with changing the world. Right. Oh, you know, I remember those days.

You know, people will always say, now, oh, you're too old you don't get it, they said, no, we live through something like you live through. The internet really changed everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. And it's the funny thing to to note that. I think one way of saying is that the kind of search lamp of culture, the searchlight falls on different

things at different times. I remember, for example, for UPL in the eighties, suddenly, to be in a dance club it was like the hippest thing in the world, not as if they hadn't existed before, but there was something going on where things changed, and it was to do with the kind of music was being played, the kind of behavior that was suddenly allowed, and the display of sexuality that was allowed suddenly. So wow. For a few years, dance clubs were the critical marketplace for ideas, and then

suddenly it wasn't. How when you say that, are you talking about like the Menchester sound and that stuff before that? Even before that, Yeah, I think suddenly I remember, you know, going to clubs in London and bumping into people that subsequently became world famous, like George and they was hanging around in clubs and well, okay, so but let's go back to the North. So you're there and are you like a good student. I'm the laziest students in the world.

I think. I think it was fascinated by music and not else. But I had a kind of bleak northern classical education, and um, some of it rubbed off, I guess. So you're still a snob today. Now you know the terms are flipped between the UK and the US. Did you go to a public school, private school or did you go to a public school? Well? I went to what you call a public school, and we call a private school the government school. Yeah, okay, a grammar school

we call them. Okay. And how long did you go for? Well? I did the whole high school thing. Then what about college? And then I went to college and studied music and fine arts. Okay, so you graduated from college. Yeah, okay. This is something you wanted to do or you were doing for your parents. I think it was a bit of both. I mean, I think they wanted me to probably to go and study medicine or something much more academic, and I kind of chiseled away until I got an

offer to do music and art, which is with my loves. So, um, I went to college to please them, but chose the wrong subjects. Okay, well that you know, that's rare. We always hear about people dropping out the UK and becoming musicians. So you go to college, you finished college, then what's the next step. I go to India to study yoga and meditation. Okay, well you know, putting out my father's had. First thing would say is an American? Well how did

you pay for that? Um? I guess I worked, you know, like holiday jobs and saved money until I had enough to go and I couldn't afford to fly. I went overland. It took me seven weeks to get from London to New Delhi. Okay, like the New Delhi free trainers. Little feet would say, how do you how do you actually get from London to Delhi? Go to Thrust from Amsterdam? And like I said, it took seven weeks and it

took me through all sorts of near death experiences. Wait a second, So you get the Amsterdam by train by boat in trosen train now and then you're on a bus for like six or seven weeks. What happens at night? You sleep on the bus and is it the same bus or you keep changing the same bus? And did you go alone? No? With you know, thirty five hippies. But but with all thirty five hippies were going from me Amsterdam. But in terms of leaving the UK, did

you leave with thirty five people? No? No, No, half a dozen people that I knew. And one friend in particular who was a subsequent member of the Thompson to was John Rugue. But we're both guitarists. We took our guitars with us and we kind of paid our way by playing basically, Okay, but you're on a bus for six weeks, seven weeks? Yeah, Well, it did stop occasionally, and he would stop occasionally, like for a day or

like a pit stop something like that. And so we got to Afghanistan actually, and then um, I did spend some time they're waiting for another bus to to take over, which is a long, long story other people have asked me about and I think I'll save that for writing the books sometimes. Well, did sub think bad happen there? Yeah? Yeah, yeah? And did you feel your life was threatened? Um? Oh, very very definitely. Yeah, but you survived somehow and the

guitar was my constant companion. And okay, and how well did you play before you get out of the bus um. God, that's not for me to say, but I probably did improve by having to play for my life on a couple of occasions. And so then when it took seven weeks to get there, then you were in India for

how long? Six months? Six months? Going where I went to Rishikesh to see where the Beatles had been in the astram with the Maharsh Maharishi mai Um in a place called shank and there was a sign that said fabulous beetles were here, and I knew I had landed. But of course though those that era had passed, but we were you know, we were kids wanted to learn meditation and strong guitars and hang out and eat vegetarian food and it was fabulous. Well well, but then you

traveled around India a little bit. Yes, I went down south and then back up to the north. But it actually started a love affair with Indian music that that persisted to this day, you know. So I got to India regularly and work with musicians and that's part of my kind of labor of love that well, the first time I went to India was just last summer. It's just a fascinating place, isn't it. I mean, you're afraid of getting sick, but it's where I was. Griffin was

won by you felt relatively safe. Yeah, but I mean everyone gets a bit sick sometimes, you know, you wear it with pride, I think, okay. So then it takes seven weeks to get back from India. No, somehow, I think there was a bit of scrabbling around for loose cash and we managed to get cheap plane tickets. I actually got very ill and there was a point where

I thought, you know what, I'm not getting better. Maybe I should go back and faced My father, of course, was the doctor, had a lot of stern words about what we've been up to all the rest of it. Okay, but then you obviously got better. Yeah, And what was

the next step? Um? I think I went to live down in the southwest of England and was into kind of experimental music, kind of work, shopping with other experimentalists, and then I got a call from some old school friends, including the guy i've into India with, and basically punk

had happened. And the thing about point was it gave us permission to instead of looking at and watching other bands doing it, it it gave us permission to do it ourselves, so there was a very democratizing effect regardless of the style of the music. It was like, have a go time, right, you didn't have to be good. He's like even Lester Banks was a musician playing his typewriter. So I don't know. Before that, maybe it was just to beyond the dream of a of a kind of regular guy from the

north of England. You know, that's what something that millionaires do, and and we couldn't do it. But suddenly we could, and so we had to go and we had the original Thompson Twins, which was well, well, let's slow. You're in the southwest of England. Yeah, I moved back up to where I was raised in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. Yeah. Okay, so then you're there and you're working jobs at this point. Yeah.

I worked in a psychiatric hospital and then as a teacher for a while, okay, and then you ultimately go to London. Yeah. And if you look up legendarily it says you were a squatter. Is that true? Absolutely, that's

the only way we could afford that done. In fact, it was a lifeline to all sorts of creative activity for many many people, you know, because by living for free, you basically had time on your hands to be creative, whereas if you paid rent, suddenly you know, you were working every day and coming home exhausted and blah blah blah. So it caused and in my in my street of squatted houses, I think there was six or eight bands really, so it really was a kind of hothouse of that

kind of activity. Okay, you know this is not something most people do in America, So it's an abending building. Yeah, okay, what about like electricity and water. Well, there was a peculiar de facto loophole in this in this argument where the buildings were owned by the city council and they thought that it was better to have people living in them because a they looked after the buildings, be they didn't go into the homeless register. So it was a kind of, like I said, de facto solution to a

big problem. And as long as you didn't trash the place for a while, at least they were happy and it was a safe situation. Well I'm not saying that exactly because you know, inevitably it was also the landing place for a lot of desperate characters. You know, so you had to be ready to jump out of bed in the middle of the night sometimes. Okay, So you moved down because you're friend from school went to India says,

now's the time. Um, I know. I moved back up to Chester Villa, Derbyshire, where we'd all been at school together, formed the band, then moved the band down to London, you know, in seeking success because you know it's like coming to Hollywood or something. Okay, but it was the the punk era. But did you really think you could have success? Yeah? I think so, as I'm saying that, there was something about the punk era which said anyone can have a go and look, there are bands making

it that are just doing it with three chords. You don't have to be a kind of diamond encrusted jazz enthusiastics in order to get through. So before the punk era, did you think you were going to be a professional musician? Yeah, but not in a band. Well we're doing what probably teaching. Okay, So you didn't wake up with dreams of stardom. I think it ended up that way once it's kind of tasted the kind of flavor of that. I mean, it's

a very alluring thing, isn't it too? To be part of something very exciting and to be adored for doing that, um really hooks your ego like crazy, you know, and and in a way that gives you the energy to pursue and put the extra work in which it takes. It takes a lot of hard work to do this, So you can't do it unless somehow you're totally enthusiastic. Okay, so there were six like six billions in the Squats. Then other than yourself and your meat, did anybody else

make it from that error? Yes, the Slits and the pop group the Slits, there was. The woman in the Slits wrote that book a couple of years ago. She's a great writer. Okay, so now you're in the squat, you're rehearsing every day. Yeah, what's the next step after that?

I was just looking for gigs everywhere, and then, you know, as soon as we can, we buy an old try can old van, and then we start to buy bits and pieces of p A equipment, just so that if anyone wants a gig, we can just offer the whole solution. You know, have van m p A will travel was the kind of motto of the moment um. So we did that for a while and then started releasing our own singles on our own Okay, first question, you weren't

worried about all that p p A equipment getting stolen? Well, yeah, but we put paddlelocks on the doors of the Okay, and now you wanted to make a record. What do you do for money? What do you do for studio? Producer? Engineer? We begged and borrowed time from a friend who had access to a studio and someone who eventually became our publisher.

I was starting out in the music business and had a little studio and things, so yeah, they gave us time, and we did the first record that way, and then slowly but surely we were chopping around for a deal and it's you know, it came, but not not in one big kind of arrival moment. We had to work hard for it, and in fact, we put out a couple of albums before we had any kind of hit. But we were well known in the kind of student venue circuit for putting on a good show. How many

shows were you playing at that time? I have no idea. We're playing a lot or a little a lot? Yeah, okay, would you play any covers? Were all original? I? Was going to say all original, but there were a couple of occasions when we played covers um just for fun, but nothing that became well known for us to play.

So then how do you get a record deal? Well, in those days you just just kind of trail around the record companies with a cassette and throw cassette, give them cassettes and watch them throw them over their shoulders kind of thing. And I think the magic moment was instead of giving them a cassette, you have your independent release single and they reluctantly will have to listen to that. People like John Peel started playing us on the radio.

We got some an unexpected and unpaid for promotion that way, and then suddenly a record company goes, oh that's of interest, and we signed, actually with the German company called Hanser did an album, but we were distributed in the UK through Arista, and we thought this is crazy what we go when we really go go directly with Ariston and we ended up on the label. Okay, when did you get a manager? Oh around about that time, I think when we were looking for the deal, and he was

another college friend. You know, just how long was he the manager? Through the hit years and where is he today? He lives in England and in the southwest of England. Not in the music business an right, Okay, so you're you're making progress, but on some level you're struggling. Yeah, because we hadn't made it yet with a position in any chart. Okay. So was there tension in the band,

people threatening to quit, etcetera. It came to that, but there was a kind of embarrassing moment that brought this all to the four and in our second album, which luckily we got produced by Steve Lilly White, which was an amazing kind of step forward for for people in our situation. This was before now, this was actually on Arista, but we hadn't yet had a hit. Okay, so we were just doing our thing. Did you get lily White?

He must have liked us. I don't know. These things happen. Um, So we're making an album and we didn't have enough material and at that moment I just got enough money to buy a synthesizer. So during the time of those albums sessions, I was at home with a synthesizer, which what was the synthesizer? It was an Oberheim b x A And for years that was the only SYNTHI ever you, okay, because it was quite expensive and I couldn't afford more.

But anyway, at home, I wrote this song on the synthesizer, which I thought, this is catchy, it's not like the other stuff. But when we ran out of enough material for the album, I said to everyone in the band, it's all right, I've got this other song, and what I'll do is I'll come in and teach you parts to replace what I played on the synthesizer, which we did, and it became this dance track call in the Name of Love unbelievable. It will really white produce that he did, Yeah, okay,

in the Name jumped out of the radio. There you go. Well. The embarrassing thing was it was supposed to be the filler at the end of side and it ended up being the big international dance hit that in a way was writing on the wall for me that I needed to pursue this more kind of what I thought of as a high tech approach to making music. And within a few months of I think, we toured for a while. But within a few months of that the band had kind of imploded. It wasn't what it used to be anymore.

And basically the three of us that became the famous Thompson Twins if you like that, Myself, Joe and Alana. We we became this kind of studio unit in which we realized for the first time that we weren't a band that had to write parts for us to play. We were designers of records. And that was a kind of transforming realization. Suddenly we weren't thinking, well, what's the guitarist going to do in this So one of the first things we did was make an album without any guitars,

and that was really liberating for us. Suddenly it was about songs, sounds, experiments, and technology. Okay, were the other members of the being angry, some more than others, probably, But I think there was a natural end to the ark of, you know, the narrative arc of that of that lineup. And so I mean, I'm still close to two, at least two of the other members I see quite often.

And are they in music, um unprofessionally yes. There Now, when you know the Thompson Twins hit and you looked at the three members, it looked like you were essentially the act. What exactly did a Lota and Joe contribute, I would say as in me well, Um, we had an actually formal division of labor in the Thompson Twins that you you know that you know well, which is that I did the music and the recording. We wrote songs together, although that was mostly a lander on words

and me on the music. Joe contributed occasionally but not very much, although we're equally credited in all songs. Um. So I did all the studio work. Atlanta was in charge of the visual image, so she did photos, clothing videos which were just exploding as as a new means of promotion, and Joe did the live show because he had a kind of theater background. He wanted to get all the lighting and stuff sorted out and make the drama of it. So we stuck to that very very clear.

Was actually written down in a kind of weird manifesto when we set out, Okay, these are aims and objectives and this is how we're going to do it. So it was a peculiarly rational and kind of hyper organized approach that we took at that point. Okay, well, you know the old expression, and where there's a hit, there's a writ In this particular case, as the b M cub successful, then it goes past his success. I mean, are people used with the songs individually? Joe didn't contribute much.

Does that anger the other members of the royalty participants? Well, it shouldn't do, because there's something about being in a band that that implies you're all in it together to some extent, you know, And that's the way it goes when you when you're seeking success together and who knows what may happen, then I think you will throw your hats into the same ring. However, there's another way of doing it, which is where you know, the main songwriter gets all the money, and that can lead to a

lot of hard feeling. I think, Um, because a band is a band as a band if there's some magic to be exploited in that band, and I think it should be recognized. And there's another rather peculiar thing as well, which is if you say everyone gets paid equally regardless, then people stop suggesting half witted ideas to just get their foot in the door of the of the money flow. You know, they say, well, I'm going to be well

off regardless. So um, I think that was something we realized in the previous incarnation of the band that it's not about everyone making suggestions just so they can earn money. So the first album you do as the three is quick Step and Psychic, which I think was just called Sidekicks here in the States, and we recorded it in substantially anyway in the Bahamas and Compass Point Studios with Alex Sadkin, who to me was just a name on

a label. You know. I've seen Bob Marley and Grace Jones records with Alex Sadkin written under that, So it was it was a great pleasure to do that. And of course he was super smart and taught me a lot about how to make a good record. What do he what do he teach you? I think that kind of level of perfectionism because he didn't come so much from the kind of the drama of rock and roll. He was. He started out as a cutting engineer, t boy,

you know. So he worked at Criterion Students, I think in Miami and learned how to cut a good record, and he learned that you can't have the fattest based sound in the world if you also want the biggest guitar. You know, there's a compromise to be made. And and and so he's looking for those sounds, the shape and size of the snare drum, which is gonna groove the song along but not take up too much space. And I think when you listened to reggae records, there's something

to be learned there. You know, everything has their place in terms of frequency. They don't compete with each other. Rock music is a mess by comparison. You know, all the instruments are getting each other's way and it makes a kind of glorious mess. But he came more from the reggae um experience, I think, and we're all the songs written before you go out there. So how long

did it take to cut the record? I think we did like a month and a half in the Bahamas and then went and finished it and mixed it in rack studios in London. So in terms of you know, the record companies usually don't pay for that kind of stuff at this point in time. But in terms of going a compass point, if you're thinking, as somebody, well, okay, I'm traveling away from home. It's a relaxation party place. How do you make a record in that environment? Oh?

We were driven, I mean, you're right, we didn't. We didn't really know what we're getting into. And we remember we turned up with our kind of London winter clothes. We were punks that we had leather jackets and jeans and it's incredibly hard. So the first thing we had to do was virtually strip make in order to get any work done. Um. But because there was a culture of getting on with a lot of great records got made there. Um. There was a slightly overrelaxed kind of

island vibe which irritated me a bit. But I've seen got into swimming out to the reef every morning before working. That you know, put me in the mood. Hey. Um, we we did good work there, and I think it was just because we were driven. And that was also in the pre internet era, so there are fewer distractions. Absolutely, it was we had, as I recall, we had to book phone calls, so if we wanted to get in touch with New York or London, we had to kind

of put in a request to the local telephone exchange. Now, ARIA still was run by Clive Davis, historically interferes with the artistic process of the act. Everyone warned us, hey, whatever you do, don't get him involved. And he. I mean, luckily he had other distractions at the time, I'll put it that way, including some great artists that he was concentrating on. So we almost kind of snuck under the radar as the kind of act that everyone thought Clive

won't understand. And maybe he did more than we gave him credit for, but we didn't have a great deal to do with him in terms of Clive, what do you think about this latest record and what should we do? It was more A and rd from the UK in fact, by Simon Potts. And yeah, as as I said, we got warned to keep out of out of the clutches

of it. So when the record is finished, do you think you have a hit because you had in the Name of Love that was on the previous record, right, So, um, yes, I think we wrote four songs that we thought we were in the bag with, you know. And to this day that's one of my rules, like when you've got four songs you feel confident about, there's a glorious moment, then you can start going way left of center because you know you're safe. So instead of always looking for hits,

you can do something a little bit more experimental. So I think We went there with a with a feeling that we we've kind of nailed it somehow, and the record comes out and what happens We had our first um TV and chart regular chart hit with Love on your Side in the UK. So finally we caught up, you know, because in the Name of Love was big news in the States, but not so much in the UK.

So finally we're recognized in our hometown and things are going off, and we tour worldwide and everything's good, and we go to make a second album and everyone says, well, let's do it the same way. We were enjoying working with Alex Atkin. We liked to compass port. Let's go back there and we'll mix it rack like we did before. But this time, before going we had written hold Me Now.

Hol May Now was one of those songs that just insisted itself upon us, you know, and I knew this was massive, So we recorded it in London at Rack Studios before going there with Alex. Um I did it on my own, and then Alex subsequently arrived very very he was busy with someone else. I can't remember if it was Duran, Durand or something. No, it wasn't it was someone else. But anyway, by the time he showed up,

everything was done, apart from absolutely nailing the vocal. So he helped me get the vocal because it's very difficult to produce your own vocal, you know, you have to wear two hats. And again to this day when it comes to the vocals, I like to just be the singer and not be the producer. Um So we did that, and then we went to Compass Point with a single going up the charts in the UK and in the US and no phone contact, so we didn't know this, but we knew that it was out there doing business

for us. And then one day, you know, we book a phone call two someone at Arista in New York and they're just going crazy that this record it is super hot. They were so excited, and of course the excitement got through to us. But the point of the story is that it's set a very high standard. With that excitement coming from the rest of the world, we knew the album had to be brilliant. We weren't just fooling around anymore, you know, we were deadly serious about it,

and I think that's some of our best work. You know, I love that album. And I listen to Doctor Doctor, just the way it starts off and into the Gap. I mean I listened to it, not because we were doing this. I mean I tell you a story after story of listening to that album, and you know, it's just etherorial. It's like in another world that it was made, like you're visiting another galaxy and it still stands up today. Well, I'm glad you think that. I mean, I kind of

agree with you. We were hot. I mean, we're working with the right people in terms of the engineering producer, and it just captured what we wanted to do at that time. We'd become less Uh, it's interesting. I think we've become less technical about the arrangement. The previous album, Psychics, was all synthesizers and drum machines, whereas In to the Gap saw guitars and pianos and strings and stuff appearing. So we were opening our palette to the possibilities of

of making kind of classic pop records. Okay, go back, how did all me now come together? Alanna and I who we're in a relationship with someone had a big fight actually, and we had you know, the way I explained it is that you know, adults sometimes have to get over those kind of things and make friends again, and we did, and the song grew out of that experience of what it's like to kind of feel terrible about what's happened in a relationship and then finally find

her way of getting it back together again. And she wrote the lyrics and you wrote the music. We wrote the lyrics between us, and I think I wrote all the music. And how fast did it come together? I think it was immediate. I was all written in an evening um. But then Joe, who subsequently turned up, made some suggestions about the melody of the verse I seem to recall, so he did contribute to that song, um in the eleventh hour. Okay, so you wrote the song, yeah,

and you immediately knew this was a hit. Yes, I mean if you do get those feelings, so I mean maybe those maybe those feelings can sometimes fool you they're kind of shimeric or something. But I often get that kind of heartbeat that mrs A bait, and you go, wow, this is something special. Pursue it, Tom, don't let this one get away, you know. So I definitely felt it over that songe. Okay, when you feel that way. Are you afraid you're gonna suck it up? Unwax um, I

suck it up before I even get to wax. Sometimes, you know, it's an incredibly responsible thing you have to. I mean, these days, it's easier in a way because you can guard the version of the song that you think is great, do more to it and go back to the original if you if if you feel you've lost your way. However, back in the day, I don't think that was quite so easy. I mean, goodness knows how many great songs have been rendered mediocre by overworking them.

I mean it must be true. I certainly hold my hand up to say that happens in um. But conversely, some mediocre ideas sometimes get polished into an interesting direction that you never expected. So you know, swings and round events. So I just know, when rating something, sometimes you're regar while this is really good. Then you become self conscious

and it can't quite sustain. Yeah, I think there's a okay, there's something inherent in the quality of rock and roll, And I've always counted pop music as the kind of it's in the family of rock and roll, even if it's not the boss, right, it's the kids, sister. Now, there's something about it which has to be dangerous. It can't just be cute and safe and in a comfort zone in all its life. Otherwise it doesn't do the job it's meant to do, which is, you know, alert

you to possibilities and the revolutionary spirit of youth. And those are the things that I think we work. We kind of iron out of our work by overdoing it, over polishing it. And actually it's a kind of obvious thing to say anyway, but as long as there's a kind of danger that things could go terribly wrong in what you're doing, that's the kind of balance to maintain. Okay,

let's jump forward. Because you said rock and roll in youth. Okay, you're not a member of the youth now, so can you capture the Z guys somehow and the music you make it? I mean, I'm so lucky to be able to put my finger on that nostalgic experience of it, you know, and say, wow, this was so incredibly amazing for most of my life and I can still feel it, and I can still remind other people of it as well. Um, I have to say, I'm having strange experience with contemporary

pop music. I was doing something incredibly mundane yesterday and shopping for clothes in l A and I lost kind of how many stores I was driven out of by the inane music I was hearing. So and this deeply troubles me because I'm someone who loves pop music, and I can fight to find something in every piece of music. You know, if I'm generous, I can always find something

that's good in it. But the averages weren't great yesterday, I tell you so for me, it's lost something special, and it is that evocation of the spirit of change in the world. In other words, rock and roll was once a vehicle for social change. We did it because we wanted the world to be a better place, not because we wanted to be famous and rich and drive a fast car, which for sure we're subsequent benefits, but that's not the So do you know what I mean?

Somehow that's become the reason you're speaking. You're preaching of the converted here. But also I have to ask, as you touched on this, is it a matter of hip hop? Is it a matter of the tier it away? What is it that bugs you? No, it's neither of those things. I mean, they sound like good things to me, okay. I think one major thing, especially with pop music, is that songs are written by committee now, and a few members of the committee are often wearing a marketing hat.

So in a general sense, you no longer trust the voice of what's coming through the song. It's just made to be catchy and insistent and make you stream it for a while and then go somewhere else. In other words, it's it's ambitions have changed to Lee. Okay, do you believe forgetting thirteen writers you were in a band. How important is collaboration in the creative process. I think it varies in importance from time to time, and I think it's I think it's good for any creative people to

do both. I love working on my own, but I also love working with other people, and sometimes it's very clear to me that a different kind of work emerges as a result of either practice. Do you think you're driven to higher height if you're working with somebody else, I think you're driven away from your own repetitive thought processes and into new ones. So it's a very valuable thing.

I mean, sometimes I like to just produce other people because it's not my ideas I'm just helping them to get the best out of it, and that to me is a kind of eye opening thing. Oh wow, they've done something I never would have thought of doing, and they turned around and and thank me. But actually I should be thinking, Okay, so now you're on a massive tour in the week of hold me now, good experience or bad experience? Good? Yes? And it was it was

a NonStop party. And you know, I was Mr. Self discipline because by this stage I was not drinking or doing drugs or anything. I was very, very soberly observing and enjoying everything that went down. So how did you start doing drugs in alcohol? I just committed myself to other activities and doing yoga and meditation and stuff like that.

But what what inspired you to start the idea that there was something beyond just having a good time, um and then waking up the next morning feeling bad about it. But also, there's a lot of stresses. People use drugs because they can't fall asleep on the road. So sure, and there were times I was jealous, you know. And interesting enough, that's how we got into country music, because you know, down the back of the bus after a gig, everyone was partying, I will go and sit next to

the driver who was always listening to country. So you know, I ended up buying Stetler brother albums that I didn't even know existed before that, you know. And now are you in general are you a loner? No? No, I like the company of people. But do you need your alone time? Yes? Right, okay, so then that's a massive success.

Do you make any money, yes, but not all of it fell into our bank accounts because we we ran the kind of um we around, the kind of operation where if we had a successful album, we think great, now we can put an even bigger show on in the next tour, you know, And we basically spent it all on the band rather than ourselves. Um, So we didn't make person more fortunes, perhaps as big as we might have done. So then you make another record, another album. Yeah.

The next one was his to Feature Days, and we started off recording it ourselves, um in Paris um where I actually became ill and things ground to our heart and it was all a little bit of too much pressure for me. And we were facing a tour that I realized we wouldn't have the album ready for, so we canceled this upcoming tour and thought, let's have a rethink about this. And at that moment Narl Rodgers got in touch with us and said he want to do

it with us. So that was an interesting kind of morsel to to attract us to New York and do that. You got ill, But what was that about. I was living in Paris at the time. I think I got so stressed out with I was working in two studios simultaneously. It was driving me crazy, you know, and was all to try and meet the false deadline of this tour that had been booked on the assumption that we've finished the album, and I simply wasn't ready to walk away from the studios, so um, I had to kind of

cry halt to the process. And when it stopped, I kind of collapse into an exhaustion that I've been holding back on. I think, you know, because you do that. I often do that at the end of a tour. I think this is going fine, and then the day after a tour because the accumulated exhaustion, I've been in denial. I know exactly. You don't like sometimes I'm on the road for weeks and I enjoy going from place to place, and as long as you're going from place to place,

you're fine. It's who stay at one place you crash. Yeah, it's something like that. It's a denial of and of course to travel into gig it's exciting, so you're living on the adrenaline of that as well. It's the other problem. But when we finally said okay, let's let's hold the album for a moment, wait until Nile is ready, because he was working with someone else. Um, so we had a little break during which time I really went downhill.

And then the album comes out and it is not as successful as Into the Gap, not quite no, but it was still a pretty successful record and took us around the world another time for a big tour. But maybe the kind of narrative arc of our kind of shiny pop success had begun, had gone over the peak, you know, and we had to turn into something else. And I think also at that point at the end of that tours when Joe left, so we became the

two pieces. And why did he leave, Well, we'd have to ask him that, but I think it probably he felt they'd done enough and it wasn't going the way he wanted to. I think he wanted to settle down with his girlfriend and not be chasing around. I mean, because Atlanta and I were together in a relationship, it felt easy for us to just speak constantly on the move because we were together, you know. But he us

and squeezed out no, not at all, no, not in anyway. Okay, so he's out of the beard, and what's the next step. Then we became the two piece stops to It and went on to make UM three albums that way, which was all fun. And but the nature of the music business is changing, and I remember we kind of decided,

for example, we didn't even want to tour anymore. We just want to make videos, and kind of it seemed like an exciting idea as an alternative to slugging around the world, to actually play to people via a screen. I mean, now, I don't think that at all. I think it's the most appalling way of trying to communicate

with an audience. But then it seemed like a revolutionary idea that might bear fruit, and so we just kind of talked ourselves out of touring UM And you know, if we hold that thought, it ended up being nearly thirty years until I went on the stage and sang those songs again. But you end up moving to New Zealand. What was the thought there, Well, Atlanta was from New Zealand. We had kids, and I think she quite rightly thought

that's a great place to raise them. Um, and let's get away from this because us, for as long as we're in London, we're part of the music business, you know, and so to retire from that, especially to retire from mainstream pop music, it felt necessary to go and live in the bush somewhere. And then the band turns into Babble. Yeah, but that had started in London before we left. We

did one Babble album which I really adore. Actually, that first Babble album, there's something about finally throwing off the shackles of having to write pop songs. So there must have been a lot of stuff, a lot of accumulated ideas that were never suitable for pop songs that got an expression in that album. And of course it was a strange thing. We we signed to a different company at that point as well, to Warner, and changed our name, and I don't know quite how we pulled that off.

They must have thought we were crazy, and we probably were. In terms of our careers. But we simply had lost the desire to chase it anymore. You know. It was about being creative, but not about Korea. Okay, but that was nearly thirty years ago. Do you wake up one day and say, holy sh it, I'm not in the in the stream anymore? No, because I mean other water has got under the British since then, and when I have raised family and you know, I'm I'm thirty years older.

So to me, in a way, the naive dream of the career was something that that I started with when I was a teenager and gave up when I was thirty five or something. You know, I don't have that dream anymore. Um. I do it more because I love it rather than because it's going to turn into something amazing. So to be point blank, does the tops and twins or did it throw off enough money that okay, it all works? You mean, do I have to tour now or there's been thirty years? You know? Did you have

to you know, what were you surviving for thirty years? Yeah? Yeah, there was it was. There was trickling royalty checks all that time. I'm very lucky and it paid for me to do other things in music which weren't earning money, like I have a project as a dub artist, as an Indian classical artist, as um an experimental electronic artist, and as a film scorewriter as well. Now, apart from the film scores, none of these other things were making money,

you know. But I thought, finally I've earned the chance to do these things which will always shove to one side where we were being quote unquote successful, you know. So I spent thirty years doing that and I've had a great time, and most of those projects are still alive and kicking as well. It's just that they're so underground. Most people don't know about them, and that because that's the nature of underground, right, you don't get to hear about But are you angry or upset that they don't

have as wider audience as they might know? No. In fact, for me, part of the relief of those projects is that you don't have to spend a lot of time promoting them. They just are what they are if people happen upon them and like them, and that's fine. They don't need to prove themselves in any other way. Whereas there's something about being in a pop group the reverse is true. You have to kind of push yourselves in front of people all the time and maximize every effort

that you make. So you're in New Zealand. Ultimately the relationship ends. How long ago was that, oh, sixteen seventeen years okay? And then do you stay in New Zealand or what are you doing for a while? And then a ladder actually wanted to move back to London, and so to be so that we could carry on being parents to our kids, I agreed to go back to London as well, And so about fifteen sixteen years ago, and moved back to London. And then you got remarried.

How did you meet your new wife? She is American, but I had met her in New Zealand and we still as a result of that, we because we both have New Zealand in our histories, we started going back there every winter, as I explained, and and so every year we spent part of our part of our time there. So you have two kids, I have two, she has three, So we have five. Okay, but start with your two kids. What are they up to? My son is a musician. Is he off the payroll? Just about? Yes, he's actually

quite successful. In his own particular niche of very underground electronic experimental music. He lives in Estonia, really, which is an interesting choice. I've been there at Talen. He doesn't. It's exciting and also scary with you all Russian buildings. Yeah, but anyway, he seems to be happy there. My daughter, who shield kick me for saying this, but she dropped out of school and then spent a lot of time

changing the world one joint at a time. And then suddenly one day she said, I want to go back to university. So she's studying philosophy. So how did you decide to go back on the road. Well, I had so firmly put my pop music career behind me. I was doing lots of other interesting things. Why would I

be even interested? And then one day I get a call from a Mexican pop artist called Alex Sintech saying he's got this crazy idea to write a song with each of his childhood heroes, and I was one of them. Would I do a fifty fifty deal with him? You know? So I thought this is crazy. I was slightly intrigued, and then, to my total shame, I thought, well, it's Mexico, so no one will see me doing this, right. Um, it was a way for me to slip back into it. And once I've done it, I realized how which I

enjoyed it. So there I was, I think, this is great. I've just written a pop song again for the first time in a long time. And then by chance I got a call from Howard Jones saying he was going on tour in America wanted another artist to go on the bill, and was I interested? So how long ago

was it? This is like four and a half five years, OK, So I tentatively agreed and found myself just carried along with his enthusiasm, and his management became my management as well, and so it's um, I had a kind of easy re entry into all of that stuff, and and for me,

it was just enjoyment, and I really really enjoyed. I was very nervous at first, and I recall that the first gig I did after all that time playing those songs, I thought, I'll put it on a piece of introduction music, you know, before we go on stage, and I chose two to make an instrumental of one of the songs. I wasn't going to sing that, but everyone knew so waiting backstage this piece of music. It was called We Are Detective, and it was which is actually on the record.

It's a duet between Atlanta and myself. So I'm not going to do that live, um so an instrumental version would be fine. But my point is this, while I'm backstage and I'm biting my finger ins and thinking, oh my god, what have I done here? What have I gotten into? I suddenly hear the audience singing the side, and I realized then that everything was going to be okay.

This isn't a little club in Reading because we were warming up the next day we played to people, but this is our little warm up show, and a few fans have heard about it and gotten in and it was very very special and and exciting. But you see what I mean, I saidn't realize it wasn't about me

getting it right. I had to show up and do my job, but the audience was going to do half the work for me anyway, because they just want to hear those songs again for such a long time without them, you know, And from that point I was it was just all fun. So how many gigs a year do you do? Well? Last year we did eighty five concerts, which was as busy as any time we did in the eighties. And so is that the right number for you? Maybe not every year. We're not doing this year, but

next year. Maybe always with Howard Jones, Oh no, no, I haven't played with him sensory, although I do bump into him occasion at these eighties festivals that they have in Europe, you know, which a great fun. But I know most of this. This last year we've been touring with Culture Club and the B fifty twos, which was a good package as well, you know, as a kind of party night, and everyone was behaving themselves pretty much

in your drug and alcohol free Oh yeah, okay. Now, one might say to go on the road and play the old hits is nostalgia obviously pays? Well? Does it bother you to be a jukebox of your old pulpit? Well, I think you've got to be completely pragmatic about this. I mean, I play new songs as well, but if that's all I did, people just wander off to the bar. I mean I know that right, only the keenness of the fans. So when I'm playing to a big mixed audience, some of whom have come to see other bands or

whatever in the festival. I've got to deliver my hits otherwise they won't be satisfied. Luckily, I liked my hits as well, so between them I can play old and new. And also, you know, nostalgia can be a dirty word if that's all it is, but I think if it evokes a shared experience, and what I find is that there's a big emotional contact made with certain songs, and that's a real privilege. I mean, that doesn't happen in

the course of normal life. To suddenly have the kind of welling up of an emotion about something that you did thirty five years ago with these people, that's a kind of weird thing. It's very special and very precious to me. Um and it gives me as also the excuse to to tour and to play new songs and make new records. Okay, but most acts from the seventies and eighties, when they make new music, it doesn't gain any big traction. Is that as a disincentive to make

new music, Well, yes it is. And of course the background story to that is that people don't make money out of records period. Now whereas they used to. So it's all flipped now now, you know, the hardened business manager would say, well, you make a record to sell tickets, whereas on the old days you're toured to sell your record. Now that's changed everything in a way. But I mean,

I think if you have it within you. I didn't know that I was going to be making a new album year and the year before, but I ended up doing it because I'm back in that saddle. You know. It's like it seems like the normal and natural thing to do, and I just love pop music. There's something incredibly special, given that I've been doing all these other kinds of music. There's something very special about the economy and directness of pop music that for me is like

solving a crossword puzzle or something. You know that there's, um, there's an angle to it that really satisfies my brain some. But you can't climb the mountaintop every time. No no, no, no no, and nor should you want to. I mean, that's like I said, that's the game for the teenager too, to lure them into this in the first place. This the dream of being adored and famous and having won songs. Do well, Okay, but you think you could still write a part here that would be known by most of

the public. Yes. Yes, although, of course, as we touched on earlier, the nature of pop music has changed. So I don't know if I can write in that particular way, but I seem to be able to write in a way that the eighties audience likes, at least because it reminds them. I suppose of the kind of formal organization and of of a three and a half minute pop song that we used to write back then. We'll staying down this top because rock did well. The brutal answer

is yes, and it's really unfortunate. But it may be because the Internet has taken over from you know it. Put it this way, rock and roll was once an uncontained, uncontrollable, urgent energy that disurged its way through our culture and through our society. Slowly, but slowly, it was captured, controlled by corporate interests, and so it can't claim to be the very thing that defined its necessity in the first place, which was to be rebellious. Now it's just people dressing

up and looking rebellious. Now things have changed, and not only in that respect, I think in black music, especially in R and B and hip hop. Di's still a rebellious nous. There's still a vitality which hasn't quite been captured, although I think it's teetering really closely. Um. But in terms of straight ahead pop music, it's kind of sad to see it go for the uncontained, dangerous elements of our culture all living in the internet now and not in the grooves of records. That's just the sad fact.

So what's the whole from music? Well, I remember music was there before rock and roll, and it will be here a long time after it, because it's a fundamental, primal urge of us to make sound and communicate and enjoy it. And nearer I live in France, there's a cave where twenty thousand plus years ago pe All went

in to paint pictures of large animals. So that's the one that where the German director made a movie about no that was chove, which you can't go into because they're very frightened that the you know, the humidity of the and the michael organisms in our breath will destroy it, which they would. So now this place you can go into because it's they discovered graffiti from the seventeenth century, so they realized people have been going there a lot,

you know, So it's very carefully controlled. They have carbon monoxide and dioxide sensors. As soon as the temperature rises by three degrees, you're out all this kind of stuff. But I go back repeatedly because half a mile into this mountain there's a place where there's lots of amazing pictures of buffalo by some ibecks, horses and so and so forth. Why did they go so far to paint their pictures. It's because that's where the reverberation is at

its most glorious. They went there to sing. It's been going on that long, you know. And that's not even an old cave. There are their their cave art examples going about forty and even sixty thousand years now, and it's highly likely that they were getting high and singing before they painted. Now, being an Englishman, what do you think about politics relative to music and the sixties? Certainly music drove the culture and now there's certainly a lot of stuff to sing about. How come we don't have

that same the same type of music with the same impact. Well, that's probably because I mean, I think there are people writing interesting and pointed and songs of commentary and criticism, but they don't end up being in the charts in the way I mean. That was the amazing thing about the golden age of rock and roll was the bands that were our gods were also our cultural critics, and we sought out a rebellion through exactly what they did. And now people are playing it safe. There's also less

of a culture of criticism. We don't know what's true anymore for a start, anyway, so it's difficult to put your finger on what it is that we want to say. Um, and so maybe maybe that's got something to do with it. But you're you're you're living in France, which is a nation of some level of turmoil, and certainly UK with

Brexit they have some turmoil. What's that experience like? It's troubling, and of course we're all living on a planet which is presently doomed, so you know, choose your level of turmoil. It's a it's a worrying time. But I don't see the voice or hear the voices of both criticism and a call to arms from the world of music anymore like I used to. I'll read them on the internet, but I won't hear them in the songs. And so what is it like personally the arc of your life.

You have this great success thirty odd years ago and now it's thirty years later. Does it Does it depress you that you have this great success then and now you're not as well known? No? No, no, um. I don't think that being well known was ever really something that I particularly bothered about. Was just a side effect. You know, you do end up kind of measuring your stats on by some of those metrics I guess, you know, chart positions and stuff. It's just an inherent in pop music.

But that was never really what got me out of bed every morning. It was more about making music. What gets you out of bed today. Music. So if you're making music and it's only for a tiny audience, you feel like you're pushing the envelope. Everything is okay, Yes I have something to do. If there's an idea or thought of last night, and I'll wake up thing and right I'm going to do that today, then that keeps me going. And I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity,

which I think to some extent I probably earned. But it just turned out that way, you know, So what can I say? It's a it's an odd situation to be describing. But I know people whose careers didn't wane in the same way as mine, and others who's have disappeared and tiny without any trace, you know. So I'm just lucky to be doing what I'm doing. Okay, I don't hear any negative negativity. Are you just that up

a person? Are we just not hearing you know? I think we're all the position of choosing whether we want to complain about our lives or actually get on with the good things. Don't you think it is to some extent or choice. All there is is what happens and then how we feel about it. So we can't change what happens, but we can change what we feel about it. But also we can decide to what degree we want to engage. Well, all of us should engage a hundred

percent with everything. There's no debate about that in my mind. Well, today, you know a lot of people sit at home and they engage with Netflix, which is not the same thing. We had to go to clubs, We had to get out of the house. I think it was also part of the whole excitement. I'm a terrible example of someone who I don't really engage with culture directly like that. I don't have a TV set, I don't have Netflix account. I guess I have on mobile phone. And that's about

us far us I make. I make music with computers, you know, which is a kind of strange admission. But other than that, I just wonder crashing into one lamp post after another. So when you're not making music, what are you doing? That doesn't leave much time? Actually? Okay, so you're still as driven as you once were. Yes, and that's been consistent for the last forty years. And

I think part of it is having several projects. So when I finished with pop music, I go to International Observer my dub thing, or meet with the Indian musicians and write with them or whatever. So other than that, when I go back to France, I have a garden, you know, I sit in the garden. I think this is great for a few weeks, and then then I

get edgy face. I want to go touring again. Okay, you now, I mean your manager should sent me a video where you are performing with three women, everybody wearing white. Oh yeah, how long has that been? The paradigm, the Women or the White. When I decided I was gonna get back into touring the pop music again, I got in touch with my old drummer, Jeff Dougma, and he said, yes, sure,

I'd love to do that up. And then he's incredibly big in some kind of heavy metal band in Japan or something and had a stadium gig coming up, and so he had to drop out of my tour and he said, but never mind, I've got this this person in mind for you, And it turned out to be Emily Dolan Davis, a female drummer um and then a keyboard player, Amanda Kramer from from the Psychedelic First she came along and wanted to work with me, and then another and we thought, this is turning into an all

female band. Why fight it? And then I discovered, hey, it's actually something really nice about the group dynamics of women working together as opposed to the kind of tired, old male rock and roll cliches that happened on the bus, you know, two weeks into any tour. So I've just

developed an affection for working with women. And also for the first two years we wore black and then one a I thought, if we have to go on in the afternoon or look at some festival or there's no follow spot or something, people at the back of why don't we wear white and they'll see us? And it works. Certainly we're white at night too. Yes, okay. There was a video of this video that You're me and Andrew said, and everybody is singing along to the song will me now?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. But also it seemed like some of the audience was young. Well, they either another song from radio or their parents have forced it upon them, they've heard it at home. I don't know what what is this, because otherwise you'd have to seek out that. But isn't that true of the younger generation these days,

is that their taste chronologically is wide and incredibly. I mean, my kids listened to the latest pop music and like early blues recordings side by side and everything in between. And I think that's the one brilliant thing about the Internet and music is that it's put at their disposal, at the touch of the button, every single piece of

recorded music. And that's incredible thing, so much that you can't possibly listen to it all before you die, which we never had, and we would, you know, spend a long time traveling to dingy records stores and going through crates in order to maybe find the thing we were looking for and often failing. So now it's so easy, you know. Um, So maybe maybe that's the way they find it. I don't know, or do they hearken back because they can feel that excitement that they don't get

in today's pop music. Oh, I don't know if it's competing with today's pop music in that sense directly. Some people just go to festivals because they like music and they listen to anything. Um. I hope it's because they've in some way heard it and think it's nice and I want to hear more. So what's the charge? I mean, there must be an amazing charge being on stage and

experiencing that. Yeah, you have no idea, man, it's it's the one thing that I'm addicted to, really, is that emotional contact when when the crowd starts singing your song and you realize, you know what my job has done. It's over to you guys. Um. It makes me deeply happy and it kind of reverberates back through the ages. As I said, there's a contact with something that we did a long time ago, and that kind of nostalgia for me, it's not the kind of vacuous living in

the past nostalgia, but there's something very present. And it also gives me the feeling that the optimism which we still felt in the eighties about the world in general hasn't died totally. And it's been through some hard times, but it hasn't died totally. Well, if you say you live for that hit on stage, how do you feel about the thirty years you weren't on stage? Believe in me, I was totally happy not to be doing it. I

was doing other things and looking elsewhere. But I must also admit that sometimes I think, why did I wait? So I could have been having fun all this time, you know, with this particular thing. But it wasn't that I wasn't enjoying what I was doing. So it's in a way it's a kind of an old question. Well, I can wriggle out of that one in my own mind. On that note, we've been talking to Tom Bailey of the Toms and Twins, touring multiple dates around the world now, Tom,

thanks so much for me on the podcast. It's an absolute pleasure.