63 posts
Artist features & interviews
Riding a creative and popular resurgence, Deacon Blue have kicked off the new decade with perhaps the finest distillation of their hopeful musical message since Raintown. “I’m a great believer in human…
The Police Interview: ‘Being in The Police was like wearing a Prada suit made out of barbed wire’
Making Liam and Noel Gallagher look like The Chuckle Brothers, The Police were pop’s most famous brawlers, somehow making five iconic albums despite the hatred. They still loathed each other…
Then Jerico Interview: ‘I know I’m very lucky to be a functioning human being’
Then Jerico aren’t the most obvious name for an explosive tale of self-destructive anger, winding up Iggy Pop, rehab, shocking disability and heartwarming redemption. But singer Mark Shaw has lived…
Bruce Hornsby Interview: ‘I was the grandpa on the bill – probably the oldest motherf***er on the stage!’
As Bruce Hornsby returns to the UK on a wave of renewed acclaim, the piano man tells Douglas McPherson about his constant quest to evolve and how he has a…
OMD Interview: ‘Stockhausen or ABBA? Can’t we be both?’
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark began as an art project that played one gig for a dare. Forty years later, Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys’ art project has sold millions…
The Brand New Heavies Interview: ‘There are all of these grooves we haven’t got out of our systems yet’
In the early 1990s, The Brand New Heavies were at the forefront of the burgeoning Acid Jazz scene. A quarter of a century on, Founder member Andrew Levy talks to…
Kid Creole Interview: ‘I travel around, because it’s hard to catch a moving target’
The tropical gangster Kid Creole? Travelling showman August Darnell? Native New Yorker and former english teacher Tom Browder? The leader of Kid Creole and the Coconuts has more identities than…
INXS Interview: ‘We were all part of a brotherhood’
They were the Aussie gang who could have ended up as petrol pump attendants. Instead, INXS conquered the world and became embroiled in a saga of drugs, ghosts, undiagnosed mental…
Denise Pearson Interview: ‘The music in the 80s is an era to be reckoned with’
Family conflict is nothing new in pop music. When The Everly Brothers imploded in the mid-70s, brothers Don and Phil didn’t speak to each other for a decade, and only…
Martin and Shirlie Kemp Interview: ‘For us, the words actually mean something’
Eighties pop royalty Martin and Shirlie Kemp have joined forces for an unexpected album of jazz covers. The couple talk to John Earls about their feelgood record, dinners with George…