Jen gets to know Howard Jones well over a laugh and a chat.
Get ready for a double dose of the 1980’s smash hits as two of the era’s biggest icons, KIM WILDE & HOWARD JONES, return to Australia for a co-headlining tour. thanks to www.metropolistouring.comand David Roy Williams.
HOWARD JONES is described by AllMusic.com as “one of the defining figures of mid-’80s synth pop.” A classically trained pianist, Howard Jones applied his classical skills to synthesisers, creating a unique sound and composing a string of chart topping hits. His 1983 debut single, “New Song” peaked at number 3 in the UK singles charts – more recently “New Song” received new life when it was used in a pivotal scene in ‘Breaking Bad’. Howard’s first two albums ‘Humans Lib’ and ‘Dream into Action’, brought Howard a host of hits including ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, ‘What is Love?’, ‘Pearl In The Shell’, ‘Like to Get To Know You Well’, ‘Hide And Seek’ (performed at Live Aid), ‘Look Mama’ and ‘No One Is To Blame’, which reached No.1 in the US. Howard has sold over 8 million albums across the globe.
It was my pleasure to interview Howard, I mean I was a teen in the 80’s so I jumped at the chance.
Hi Howard, how are you going?
Hi Jen, I am good thank you, how are you?
Great thanks and stoked you are heading Down Under with Kim Wilde, I had a chat with her a few weeks back, are you as excited as we are to have you return to Australia?
I am absolutely thrilled that we are coming back. I absolutely love Australia and all my memories of doing shows there and visiting are so great and I love the people and the lovely relaxed warm atmosphere that you create. is great and I can’t wait to come.
Especially coming here with Kim Wilde, it has the makings for a really great tour! Have you worked with Kim before?
We see each other quite a lot in recent times due to doing a lot of festivals here in the UK during the summer and I’ve become really good friends with Kim and her brother Ricky. They run a charity every Christmas and they raise a lot of money for amazing charities so I was involved in that show. We hang out quite a bit so will be very comfortable on tour.
It was quite nostalgic for me researching for this interview, as I was a teenager in the 80’s and remember your music well. Lived and breathed the 80’s you could say. The 80’s was a crazy time wasn’t it?
Yes it was! I supposed to many people it was. (both laughing)
Will you be wearing classic 80’s fashion that we now look back o
n and laugh at and some we even cringe at?
(laughing) No absolutely not!
Shame!
Yes I know it is a shame but it won’t be happening! (Both laughing)
So not the lovely hair do then?
No, You have to move on! (laughing)
I remember as a teen that I admired you as you had two hair colors. Now we have multicolors in hairs like blues and purples.
Yes we do, it was such a fun time, you know, it wasn’t just about the music in the 80s it was about the videos and the visuals and the fashion and away you looked and to me it is all part of creativity really. The function of rock ’n’ roll should be, that if you want to dye your hair you should dye your hair.
True, not sure my parents would look fondly at that time with me pushing the boundaries to get my hair dyed.
Then is basically even more worth doing! (both laughing)
I was looking at some old footage of Countdown and saw an interview that you did with Molly Meldrum, a legend of a man but had a rather unique interviewing style. Do you remember being interviewed by him and thinking wth is he doing??
(laughing) I do remember being interviewed by him and I liked him very much. By that time I was used to everything as I’d had hundreds and hundreds of interviews under all kinds of circumstances and different languages, and man, it was just crazy. I remember really enjoying the Countdown interviews I think I was interviewed twice. It was great, I like people who are crazy.
Yes he was very quirky!
I used to sit on a beanbag in the lounge room every Sunday night waiting for Countdown, it was the highlight of my week. my parents used to say “ If you don’t do your homework and your chores there is no Countdown this week!”
(while laughing Howard answers) they knew which buttons to press then!
Yes they sure did!
I was a huge Nik Kershaw fan, I enjoyed watching you play with him on youtube, think it was 2008. You are good friends?
Yes I am actually, one of the reasons I organized us to do that together was to dispel the myth that that there were some sort of animosity between us because it was just invented by the press. So the best way I thought to deal with that was to invite him to one of my anniversary shows. That has been very very popular, that video.
Did your parents run your fan club in the 80’s?
Yeah they did, it was a very big part of it because they really took time and care to answer every letter. It started off with just my mum running it and then I got so big we had a team of ladies replying to all the letters from around the world. I felt it was a really important part of my legacy. I couldn’t possibly responded to everyone but all those young people who had faith that somebody would read the letter and get back to them, I absolutely want to respond to that, and there was no better person to do it really than my mother. The kindest person on the planet and people still come up to me now and show me letters that she wrote back to them and they were was so encouraging and compassionate and I’m so proud of her. She has passed away now but it was so lovely to be represented in a heartfelt way.
I guess now my biggest thing is twitter, I keep tweeting when I’m on tour to let people know what is going on. It is a lot more personal. People email me and I do my best to get back to them and I think that is a good thing actually, building the connection with people that support what you do, it was very difficult to do that during the 80s because it was so big and so many but now it is much more manageable.
You are from a rather musical family aren’t you ?
Yeah I mean nobody was particularly professional but my parents were Welsh and music certainly from their generation was huge and a huge part of life. Everyone sang and was expected to play the piano or an instrument and was part of the culture that they came from. I was just surrounded by music right from the beginning from when I was born so I suppose that certainly have a big effect on me.
My husband is Welsh and he has an amazing voice.
It does seem to be a genetic thing. It is great.
You are doing loads of touring I noticed on facebook lately. What are the main things that have changed since you started touring? For example Less hair products perhaps?
(laughing) I used to have a hairdresser that when on tour with me because that was the only way that I could maintain that level of….
Perfection?
Sophistication! (both laughing) Now I have just a pot of wax, and that is a big change. I have had to struggle to adapt but somehow I’ve managed it.
You also said that when you to use twitter a lot so that would be another change.
Yes, keeping that connection, I also pretty much every gig I come out and meet people as well. It is not a VIP thing, I just come out to say hello and meet the people who support me and shake their hand and I think that’s very important for me anyway to do that because you know who your audience are and they tell you all types of things and they tell you what songs they like and loads of anecdotes which is great feedback, so social media and meeting people is a big part of the tour for me now.
You released ‘Engage’ last year via a Pledge Music campaign, offering signed CD’s to VIP tickets to a day in the Studio with you. How was your experience with Pledge? I love it, it gives fans a way to interact with artists. You reached well over your goal.
I enjoyed it very much, a great thing about it was it made you very connected to the people who are supporting you work and you see their names and it also makes you feel very responsible that you are going to deliver something really great for them. Also it opens up all sorts of new things that I never would have thought about. Like inviting people into the studio for a day so you could explain to them exactly how you made the record and what the thinking was all that. I actually really enjoyed doing that. it is a modern innovation that is really good and I’ve been encouraging young artists are just starting out to do this, thing and made had a lot of success doing it even though they started from scratch. I think it’s great.
I like how Engage is a CD, DVD and an app. A real immersion experience. Have you worked more on the App since it was released? Great concept!
No but we have plans for next summer to involve it again but that might not be called engage we might change the name. It is interesting because that app came about from one of those studio days I did. I was actually saying to people that I would really like to have an app that people could have on their phones so they could interact more with the show. There was a guy there that says I am an app developer I would love to do it for you, so that was a great thing that came out of that campaign.
That is great! Are you going to play some songs off Engage in your set list? I would love to hear The Human Touch and Seize the Day.
Yes, I will do Human Touch and Joy.
5 quick questions for you now.
What 80’s artist was your fav to listen to?
Script Politti, China Crisis and Japan.
What kind of restaurant did you run?
A vegetarian one. Me and my manager were very sick of not being able to get a good vegetarian meal. So we just decided to open a restaurant.
That was very extreme!
Well it was so hard to get any thing that was not boring. It was enough to drive you to be a carnivore! We hired an amazing and creative chef and they caught amazing groundbreaking dinners for people. I mean we lost a lot of money on that venture but I’m totally proud that we did it. It set an agenda for other people to follow. Now I mean it has gone beyond vegetarian now, everyone is a vegan!
How difficult was it for you to sing I’d like to get you know you well in French and German?
(laughing) Well French I learnt at school and I’m quite good with accents so wasn’t but equally difficult for me, I’m useless at learning languages but very good at imitating them. it was relatively easy for me although I am hopeless at learning languages.
Did you really rerecord “Things Can Only Get Better” in Simlish, the fictional language spoken by characters in Electronic Arts‘, The Sims 2?
Yes.
That is amazing!
It was fun, I mean funnily enough a really good friend of mine who has been my friends for 30 years is now the head of music for EA Games. So when he asked me to do it, I mean he was a friend so I said of course I would do it! it was fun to do.
I am glad that you had a reason and did not wake up one day and say oh I know what I am going to do today! (both laughing)
My time is up! Thanks heaps for your time! Pleasure interviewing you Howard.
Thanks Jen, it has been great talking you.
This concert is a unique opportunity to see two international eighties pop icons, KIM WILDE & HOWARD JONES, performing the hits that defined a generation, live on Australian stages.
Australian Tour Dates – November 2016
Wednesday 2nd November – CANBERRA, Canberra Theatre
Friday 4th November – SYDNEY, Enmore Theatre
Saturday 5th November – BRISBANE, Eatons Hil
Sunday 6th November – GOLD COAST, Jupiters
Wednesday 9th November – SYDNEY, Rooty Hill RSL
Thursday 10th November – HOBART, Wrest Point
Friday 11th November – MELBOURNE, Palais Theatre
Saturday 12th November – ADELAIDE, The Gov
Sunday 13th November – PERTH, Astor Theatre
Tickets on sale via: http://www.metropolistouring.com/kim-wilde-howard-jones
QUOTES:
KIM WILDE
“…with a sprawling setlist clocking in at two dozen songs, with a two hour performance… she still looks stunning and sounds amazing, and it truly had a party-like atmosphere” – Rocksubculture
“Mention Kim Wilde’s name and people’s eyes light up. The blonde singer with the siren voice and girl-next-door appeal is one of pop music’s most dazzling stars’’ – The Dwarf
“by the time it came to Kids In America time even the stiffest of retro deniers was up“- The Music Review
HOWARD JONES
“he best represents not just the style of music but the feelings of that era” – Rock Subculture
“a synth legend, his hit songs are undeniable pop gold and his mastery of the keyboard, impressive” – Space March
“still has what it takes to wow an audience… if he is appearing near you at any time soon, then rush without hesitation to grab a ticket” – Purple
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