Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Singer-songwriter who led the Jam, chronicling the lives of Thatcher's children, then disbanded them at the peak for creative fulfilment.
On the island
Eight records
Tin SoldierFavourite
I've had to pick one band out from the era. I guess it's them because I just thought they were. I just love everything about them. I thought they just look they look like a proper band. They're all the same size. I love the way they looked. I like the sound. They look like a proper group.
I suppose it makes you think of your mum and dad and that time, that period of time I suppose. As being a sort of really small kid and hearing that sort of music. It was still in that age of romance really and innocence I think and just beautiful arrangements.
Well, I'm a big jazz fan, but I especially like Charles Mingus' stuff. I just think it's really. Funky as well, it's really soulful funky and he's also a great composer as well, he's not just about soloists.
Well, I I mean I could have chosen sort of you know more of the obvious sort of funky James Brown tracks. But this has got its own sort of funk.
Well, I thought I couldn't really be on your show without playing a bit of classical music, really. ... I do love I love this ... Daboosi's Arab best number one and the ch version I've chosen is by Bran from Masalis who put an album out called Romances for Saxophone probably twenty years ago.
This is by a young Irish singer-songwriter named Declan O'Rourke and it came out probably about two years ago and it's a beautiful track called Galileo.
Um this is by Nick Drake and it's a beautiful song called Riverman.
Um this is by Roscoe Robinson. I mean and it's it's a sort of late sixties soul R and B track. I mean I could have chosen a thousand of these sort of songs, but um this one's good enough, I think, really.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:26Do you loathe being asked questions?
I don't lose, yes, I do love it sometimes, I suppose, but um I don't know if it's just being guarded. I just there's some things I can't answer. ... I've quite like the magic that when you don't know the answer to it.
Presenter asks
6:35Did the nerves and the shyness go away when you were on stage, or did you just have to sort of deal with them because you loved the music?
I dealt with them as I spoke up to a point, but it's kind of even to this day, not as extreme as that, but I mean I still get really, really nervous before I go on, always, every single gig I've ever done ... And before a gig, at least an hour or so before a gig, I just wish I was anywhere else but that in this building. And then as soon as I get on stage after sort of a song or maybe two songs, it's just like the best place in the world.
Presenter asks
8:53What was it you hated about [school]?
Um, I don't like being told what to do, I suppose, you know, I mean that's supposed that's the bottom line really. I didn't like having to wake up every morning and go to the same place and come home and all that stuff, the whole regularity of it. And I suppose music sort of represented a way of escaping that a little bit.
The keepsakes
The book
Colin MacInnes
Because it's a mod Bible. The book's amazing, I think, yeah.
The luxury
Well, it's just sometimes on a cold summer's evening where you might wanna sit on something a bit more cosy.
Presenter asks
13:06How did [your father] begin to be a manager? I mean, how did he learn to be a manager?
You had a lot of front. And who would never get embarrassed about asking people for whether it's money or equipment or borrow your van mate for a weekend, or going into a place and asking for a gig. And you need those sort of people when you're starting off.
Presenter asks
20:57Why is [looking the part] so important to you?
Well, only again, because just because I was obsessed with clothes, is as obsessed with clothes as I was with music, you know. I mean, as a kid, you know. There was two two boutiques, as I used to call them them days, in Woken, which I would just sort of go and just look in the window for I could spend like hours just looking in the windows, just like Aladdin's cave to me.
Presenter asks
23:03What did your dad say when you told him [you decided to break up the Jam]?
I can't tell you exactly what he said'cause you won't be able to broadcast it on your show, but it was, you know. Who just thought I was crazy?
“I don't sit and think where the songs come from, that's what it really is. Why do I write? I just do. I just I accept that's what I do in life. And that's what I've always done.”
“I still get really, really nervous before I go on, always, every single gig I've ever done, even from last week to f twenty years ago, and that never gets any better. And before a gig, at least an hour or so before a gig, I just wish I was anywhere else but that in this building. And then as soon as I get on stage after sort of a song or maybe two songs, it's just like the best place in the world. I never ever want to leave it.”
“I love my children, they're my sort of saving grace, I think, really. I mean, it's time to sort of get really down or whatever. Well just bored anyway, generally, but I think with kids it's just always something interesting, something new to find, you know.”