May 3, 2009
Folk-rock singer-songwriter Al Stewart comes to Oxford for a rare acoustic concert. In an exclusive interview, Daily Info catches up with the legend himself and invites Al to look back over a music career spanning almost forty years. From early rock ‘n’ roll influences and working with guitar greats to a frank appreciation of his own music – Al lets us into his unusual way of working, why he’s not as serious as his songs suggest and what he thinks of American presidents!
Al, you’re coming to Oxford – any memories of playing here before?
I used to play there all the time. Not for a while though. I’ve played Oxford Town Hall at least half a dozen times. You don’t really get to see the places you go to. You travel there, do the sound-check, do the show, get back in the car and go away again. But I have wandered around Oxford. I’ve always wanted to go to Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons but never have. And my schedule won’t allow it this time. Maybe one day.
After all this time, do you still enjoy performing live?
Absolutely. It’s the other 96% that’s a pain in the butt. I really spend my life in dressing rooms and airports, in lounges and taxis, checking into hotels, packing or unpacking. There’s a little bit that involves playing the guitar and singing and I do enjoy that! If the concert goes well, it makes the rest of it worthwhile.
With an acoustic concert, how important is it to choose venues with good sound?
A lot of it is about economics. If you’re Sting, you can afford your own sound mixer and your sound is pretty good. If you’re me, it’s totally haphazard as you don’t know what’s going to happen in most of the halls. Some nights it’s fantastic and sometimes you can’t hear a thing. But if they’ve got modern equipment, that’s ninety per cent of the battle.
You’re appearing with guitarist Laurence Juber. You’ve worked with a range of great guitarists - including Peter White, who’s touring now too.
I’ve been very lucky with guitar players. Looking back on it, the very first guitar player I worked with was Jimmy Page and then Richard Thompson and Tim Renwick. And then Peter White and now Laurence Juber. It’s a pretty good line up! Crazy thing is, until my London date changed it coincided with Peter White being free and he was going to come and play. Having both him and Laurence on stage would’ve been sensational.
Both Peter White and Laurence Juber have produced your records. Why have you never produced them yourself?
The job of a producer is to tell you when you’re being ridiculous! Once, I was making a song called "Life in a Bottle" that never got released. We had four or five goes and eventually I hear Alan Parsons (producer of Year of the Cat)’s voice over the headphones say “You know, I don’t think this is one of your best songs.”
What’s your favourite song on your new album (Sparks of Ancient Light)?
One of my favourites is "The Loneliest Place on the Map". It’s about the Kergeulen Islands in the South Indian Ocean – and a metaphor for lost love. Kergeulen’s at least two thousand miles from anything, about as remote as you can get. Originally, the song was called "Four Leaf Clover" (he sings). And then I listened to this brilliantly evocative string arrangement and piano part that Laurence Juber had created and it suddenly suggested something remote. And I remembered the island and rewrote the lyrics into what you hear! It has a very strange beginning – it goes from C Minor to C Sharp which is an odd progression that doesn’t really exist in pop and can’t really be done on the guitar. And because we rarely have a piano on stage we rarely perform it live.
How do you go about composing your songs? And deciding which to play in concert?
I have a very odd way of working. I do the tune first and then make some lyrics as I go – it could be about flying mattresses, all the songs are nonsense to start with. Then I go back and see what it suggests. In concert, we do the guitar songs. Every night tends to be different. We’re rehearsing about thirty five so the set may change by four or five each night. We play about half a dozen from Sparks of Ancient Light.
You like to try out new songs in your concerts.
Yes I’m known to do that! I’ve written in the car on the way and played them in the evening. "Gina in the Kings Road" on my Beach Full of Shells album was written on the way to a gig in Sheffield and debuted that night. I think you should do that. I’m not knocking it, but there are bands that play the same set every night – and it’s very well done. They rehearse it down to the last tee – even the same introductions. But I like the unexpected.
Is that tension between unpredictability and rehearsal something you enjoy?
When I started out on the English folk scene, everyone would come and sing with everyone else. All the intros were improvised. And everything that happened on stage was a real kick and a thrill. Over the years, rock got a bit corporatised. It became slicker and sleeker - more highly produced. To me it became less interesting. So I’ll forget some of the words, I’ll change direction half way through, I might break into a completely different song – because that’s how I approach it. It’s what I like when I see other people - spontaneity.
Your songs are quite cinematic. Are films important to you?
Hugely important. I watch one a day when I’m not on the road – two hundred a year, or so. Basically, I like history, literature and movies. And I borrow liberally from them all. A pop song will say ‘I love you’. A sophisticated pop song will say ‘I love you’ but will take place in Austria in an Italian restaurant. One of my songs will say ‘I love you’ but it's set in the Sudetenland in 1938 and the Czechs are retreating. And all of a sudden we’re in the middle of a movie!
People love your songs for their stories and because they have such wonderful language.
Yes, absolutely, I’m a big one for using words that were never in songs before! There are a couple of hundred words that are basically 90% of all pop songs – baby, love, you, me, moon, June. These are the ones that get into songs. I see them as the bully-boy words standing at the front blocking the view. Somewhere at the back, almost invisible, are pterodactyl, amanuensis and antidisestablishmentarianism, saying choose me, choose me!
You like to make people think not just listen?
What I’m trying to do in the songs is create scenarios that, when you look at them, they’re like a stone skipping over the ocean: it’ll create more and more ripples and it’s up to you to do the thinking, to extend the song to wherever it might logically go.
You’ve lived in America since the 70s and your albums were hits there first. Given all the chatter about America these days – how do you view its place in the world?
America’s a work in progress. There’s a constant pendulum swing – from a more liberal, democratic background to a more republican, patriotic background. Kennedy swings into Nixon, Nixon to Carter, Carter to Reagan – all the way through Clinton to Bush. I could extrapolate that back 200 years. If you look at it, you’re constantly having smart presidents followed by stupid ones.
Naming any names?
Look at Woodrow Wilson, a college professor. Who follows him? Warren Harding. Harding makes George Bush look like a genius. At the moment, the pendulum is swinging away from the Bush philosophy and who knows how far it will go. It can reverse itself in a heartbeat. Carter was well on the way to liberalizing America – but because he sent too few helicopters to Iran all of a sudden we had eight years of Ronald Reagan. And especially after eight years of Bush - people are embracing change for the sake of change. It wasn’t just outside America – people inside were very dissatisfied with Bush as a president.
And although you write about soccer on your latest album, you’re a fan of American football…
I actually know more about American football. I never followed football when I was in England, I was more of a cricket person. But for the last twenty five years I’ve followed the Denver Broncos. I didn’t live in Denver. It was a crazy thing, I had a girlfriend at the time who said ‘you’ve got to pick a team’. So I said, I’ll support a team from where I have the best gig in the next year. Which turned out to be Denver!
You’re a wine enthusiast living in California. Any good wines there you can recommend?
These days people are too busy to lay something down for twenty or thirty years. And California wines are very accessible. Once it’s in a bottle you can drink it. You don’t have to lay it down for a generation. Which you do with Bordeaux. But I’m an equal opportunity drinker – I pretty much like everything if it’s well done! I like California wines but I still like Bordeaux which is where I started.
Looking back on 18 or so albums, which are your personal favourites?
The 1970s trio of Past, Present & Future, Modern Times and Year of the Cat – it was just a very exciting time. I didn’t like my first four albums very much. Of recent ones, I very much like A Beach Full of Shells. I like my latest - Sparks of Ancient Light - but I’m not sure it’s as good. I pretty much like all the ones Laurence Juber’s produced. It’s about fifty fifty – half I like, half I don’t. I don’t like Zero She Flies for instance – but do like the song "Manuscript" which is on it.
Any plans for another album?
That’s something I very much doubt because the entire record industry has temporarily stopped. You’ve probably noticed there aren’t any record stores anymore. That part of the history of music seems to have gone. I don’t really mind because it ran the length of my lifetime. I left school a couple of weeks after The Beatles released their first singles. Now I’m in my sixties and record stores are declining. There’s no point making CDs if there’s no outlet for them. So until they decide the next delivery system for music I’ve no plans to make another record.
You’re often styled as an historical folk rock musician. Do you ever wish you’d gone in a different musical direction?
There’s always been a side of me that wants to be The Ramones or The Motley Crew. I’m never going to get the disco crowd. It’s a little annoying! Groupies, to the extent that I’ve had them, have tended to be tall males with serious expressions who’ve wanted to talk about Russian history. Where are the glam rockers and the goth chicks? Even if I’m too old to do anything about it, it’d brighten the place up! The answer is they don’t come to concerts of historical folk rock songs! I’ve screwed up that side of my life.
And you’ve been very influenced by rock and roll.
Yes, part of me is rock and roll. I grew up on Eddie Cochran. I thought he and Chuck Berry were great lyric writers. To me that’s where modern lyric writing begins. Listen to the lyrics of "Something Else", "Summertime Blues" or "You Never Can Tell" - there’s some really great phrase-making there. That’s an influence. Lonnie Donegan, same thing. All the story songs – that’s where it came from, for me. There’s a part of me that still wants that rock excitement in a concert. I’m not really as serious as the songs would suggest!
Is there a difference between the British and American reactions to your concerts?
No, it’s pretty much the same. In America, because they know I’m a wine freak, people come to my shows who’ve never heard my music, saying - ‘we don’t know what you do but you have to taste this’! For some unknown reason, in England people don’t come backstage brandishing bottles of wine – but they should! If there’s one major difference it’s that. Even if you don’t like historical songs, come and have a party and some wine.
Are you ever surprised how long and successful your career’s been?
My parents said this pop stuff isn’t going to last six months. I was advised to get a job with British Leyland – forty years of solid income. And they went bankrupt. Yet the music industry that wasn’t supposed to last is pottering along and I still have a job!
Al, you’re coming to Oxford – any memories of playing here before?
I used to play there all the time. Not for a while though. I’ve played Oxford Town Hall at least half a dozen times. You don’t really get to see the places you go to. You travel there, do the sound-check, do the show, get back in the car and go away again. But I have wandered around Oxford. I’ve always wanted to go to Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons but never have. And my schedule won’t allow it this time. Maybe one day.
After all this time, do you still enjoy performing live?
Absolutely. It’s the other 96% that’s a pain in the butt. I really spend my life in dressing rooms and airports, in lounges and taxis, checking into hotels, packing or unpacking. There’s a little bit that involves playing the guitar and singing and I do enjoy that! If the concert goes well, it makes the rest of it worthwhile.
With an acoustic concert, how important is it to choose venues with good sound?
A lot of it is about economics. If you’re Sting, you can afford your own sound mixer and your sound is pretty good. If you’re me, it’s totally haphazard as you don’t know what’s going to happen in most of the halls. Some nights it’s fantastic and sometimes you can’t hear a thing. But if they’ve got modern equipment, that’s ninety per cent of the battle.
You’re appearing with guitarist Laurence Juber. You’ve worked with a range of great guitarists - including Peter White, who’s touring now too.
I’ve been very lucky with guitar players. Looking back on it, the very first guitar player I worked with was Jimmy Page and then Richard Thompson and Tim Renwick. And then Peter White and now Laurence Juber. It’s a pretty good line up! Crazy thing is, until my London date changed it coincided with Peter White being free and he was going to come and play. Having both him and Laurence on stage would’ve been sensational.
Both Peter White and Laurence Juber have produced your records. Why have you never produced them yourself?
The job of a producer is to tell you when you’re being ridiculous! Once, I was making a song called "Life in a Bottle" that never got released. We had four or five goes and eventually I hear Alan Parsons (producer of Year of the Cat)’s voice over the headphones say “You know, I don’t think this is one of your best songs.”
What’s your favourite song on your new album (Sparks of Ancient Light)?
One of my favourites is "The Loneliest Place on the Map". It’s about the Kergeulen Islands in the South Indian Ocean – and a metaphor for lost love. Kergeulen’s at least two thousand miles from anything, about as remote as you can get. Originally, the song was called "Four Leaf Clover" (he sings). And then I listened to this brilliantly evocative string arrangement and piano part that Laurence Juber had created and it suddenly suggested something remote. And I remembered the island and rewrote the lyrics into what you hear! It has a very strange beginning – it goes from C Minor to C Sharp which is an odd progression that doesn’t really exist in pop and can’t really be done on the guitar. And because we rarely have a piano on stage we rarely perform it live.
How do you go about composing your songs? And deciding which to play in concert?
I have a very odd way of working. I do the tune first and then make some lyrics as I go – it could be about flying mattresses, all the songs are nonsense to start with. Then I go back and see what it suggests. In concert, we do the guitar songs. Every night tends to be different. We’re rehearsing about thirty five so the set may change by four or five each night. We play about half a dozen from Sparks of Ancient Light.
You like to try out new songs in your concerts.
Yes I’m known to do that! I’ve written in the car on the way and played them in the evening. "Gina in the Kings Road" on my Beach Full of Shells album was written on the way to a gig in Sheffield and debuted that night. I think you should do that. I’m not knocking it, but there are bands that play the same set every night – and it’s very well done. They rehearse it down to the last tee – even the same introductions. But I like the unexpected.
Is that tension between unpredictability and rehearsal something you enjoy?
When I started out on the English folk scene, everyone would come and sing with everyone else. All the intros were improvised. And everything that happened on stage was a real kick and a thrill. Over the years, rock got a bit corporatised. It became slicker and sleeker - more highly produced. To me it became less interesting. So I’ll forget some of the words, I’ll change direction half way through, I might break into a completely different song – because that’s how I approach it. It’s what I like when I see other people - spontaneity.
Your songs are quite cinematic. Are films important to you?
Hugely important. I watch one a day when I’m not on the road – two hundred a year, or so. Basically, I like history, literature and movies. And I borrow liberally from them all. A pop song will say ‘I love you’. A sophisticated pop song will say ‘I love you’ but will take place in Austria in an Italian restaurant. One of my songs will say ‘I love you’ but it's set in the Sudetenland in 1938 and the Czechs are retreating. And all of a sudden we’re in the middle of a movie!
People love your songs for their stories and because they have such wonderful language.
Yes, absolutely, I’m a big one for using words that were never in songs before! There are a couple of hundred words that are basically 90% of all pop songs – baby, love, you, me, moon, June. These are the ones that get into songs. I see them as the bully-boy words standing at the front blocking the view. Somewhere at the back, almost invisible, are pterodactyl, amanuensis and antidisestablishmentarianism, saying choose me, choose me!
You like to make people think not just listen?
What I’m trying to do in the songs is create scenarios that, when you look at them, they’re like a stone skipping over the ocean: it’ll create more and more ripples and it’s up to you to do the thinking, to extend the song to wherever it might logically go.
You’ve lived in America since the 70s and your albums were hits there first. Given all the chatter about America these days – how do you view its place in the world?
America’s a work in progress. There’s a constant pendulum swing – from a more liberal, democratic background to a more republican, patriotic background. Kennedy swings into Nixon, Nixon to Carter, Carter to Reagan – all the way through Clinton to Bush. I could extrapolate that back 200 years. If you look at it, you’re constantly having smart presidents followed by stupid ones.
Naming any names?
Look at Woodrow Wilson, a college professor. Who follows him? Warren Harding. Harding makes George Bush look like a genius. At the moment, the pendulum is swinging away from the Bush philosophy and who knows how far it will go. It can reverse itself in a heartbeat. Carter was well on the way to liberalizing America – but because he sent too few helicopters to Iran all of a sudden we had eight years of Ronald Reagan. And especially after eight years of Bush - people are embracing change for the sake of change. It wasn’t just outside America – people inside were very dissatisfied with Bush as a president.
And although you write about soccer on your latest album, you’re a fan of American football…
I actually know more about American football. I never followed football when I was in England, I was more of a cricket person. But for the last twenty five years I’ve followed the Denver Broncos. I didn’t live in Denver. It was a crazy thing, I had a girlfriend at the time who said ‘you’ve got to pick a team’. So I said, I’ll support a team from where I have the best gig in the next year. Which turned out to be Denver!
You’re a wine enthusiast living in California. Any good wines there you can recommend?
These days people are too busy to lay something down for twenty or thirty years. And California wines are very accessible. Once it’s in a bottle you can drink it. You don’t have to lay it down for a generation. Which you do with Bordeaux. But I’m an equal opportunity drinker – I pretty much like everything if it’s well done! I like California wines but I still like Bordeaux which is where I started.
Looking back on 18 or so albums, which are your personal favourites?
The 1970s trio of Past, Present & Future, Modern Times and Year of the Cat – it was just a very exciting time. I didn’t like my first four albums very much. Of recent ones, I very much like A Beach Full of Shells. I like my latest - Sparks of Ancient Light - but I’m not sure it’s as good. I pretty much like all the ones Laurence Juber’s produced. It’s about fifty fifty – half I like, half I don’t. I don’t like Zero She Flies for instance – but do like the song "Manuscript" which is on it.
Any plans for another album?
That’s something I very much doubt because the entire record industry has temporarily stopped. You’ve probably noticed there aren’t any record stores anymore. That part of the history of music seems to have gone. I don’t really mind because it ran the length of my lifetime. I left school a couple of weeks after The Beatles released their first singles. Now I’m in my sixties and record stores are declining. There’s no point making CDs if there’s no outlet for them. So until they decide the next delivery system for music I’ve no plans to make another record.
You’re often styled as an historical folk rock musician. Do you ever wish you’d gone in a different musical direction?
There’s always been a side of me that wants to be The Ramones or The Motley Crew. I’m never going to get the disco crowd. It’s a little annoying! Groupies, to the extent that I’ve had them, have tended to be tall males with serious expressions who’ve wanted to talk about Russian history. Where are the glam rockers and the goth chicks? Even if I’m too old to do anything about it, it’d brighten the place up! The answer is they don’t come to concerts of historical folk rock songs! I’ve screwed up that side of my life.
And you’ve been very influenced by rock and roll.
Yes, part of me is rock and roll. I grew up on Eddie Cochran. I thought he and Chuck Berry were great lyric writers. To me that’s where modern lyric writing begins. Listen to the lyrics of "Something Else", "Summertime Blues" or "You Never Can Tell" - there’s some really great phrase-making there. That’s an influence. Lonnie Donegan, same thing. All the story songs – that’s where it came from, for me. There’s a part of me that still wants that rock excitement in a concert. I’m not really as serious as the songs would suggest!
Is there a difference between the British and American reactions to your concerts?
No, it’s pretty much the same. In America, because they know I’m a wine freak, people come to my shows who’ve never heard my music, saying - ‘we don’t know what you do but you have to taste this’! For some unknown reason, in England people don’t come backstage brandishing bottles of wine – but they should! If there’s one major difference it’s that. Even if you don’t like historical songs, come and have a party and some wine.
Are you ever surprised how long and successful your career’s been?
My parents said this pop stuff isn’t going to last six months. I was advised to get a job with British Leyland – forty years of solid income. And they went bankrupt. Yet the music industry that wasn’t supposed to last is pottering along and I still have a job!