A month on the road...
An interview with Judie at the end of the 'Under The Angels' tour, February 1997.
by Huw Knight
Having been a fan of Jude's for longer than I can care to remember (since in fact I heard the dim and distant strains of "For You" as I lay in bed one night listening to my radio under the covers), it has always been my ambition to follow as much of her tours as possible. For one reason or other, this has never been possible until this year, when my dreams were to be realised at long last. Having covered most of the tour, I was lucky enough to be granted an audience with the lady herself prior to the soundcheck for the last date of the tour in Swansea. I took the opportunity to discuss with Jude how she felt the tour had gone, and to find out what the future holds for her and her increasing legion of fans.
What follows therefore is a transcript of the interview which took place sat on the floor of her dressing room as she hurriedly wrapped presents for the band on the last night of the tour !!
Huw : Firstly, Jude, thanks for letting me interrupt your busy schedule, and thanks for what has been in my humble opinion, a brilliant tour. 21 gigs in the blink of an eye, and here we are an hour or so away from the 22nd and last date.
The obvious question really is How do you think the tour has gone ?
Jude : Yeah, it's been really really good, brilliant in fact. I've been away for a long time - 4 years since the "Wonderland" tour and ..(laughs) god knows how long before then, so yeah, it's been absolutely brilliant. I wish in fact that we could take a few days off and do it all again, because things have been going so well....
HK : It's been a while since your last major tour, were you at all apprehensive before you hit the road this time ?
JT : I'm always nervous before a tour, and before any gig in fact, but it's getting slightly easier now, as the hypnotism has helped me relax more. I actually enjoy myself on stage these days !! Seriously though, with a new band, you always worry how things are going to work out, and obviously there's always the thought that the audience may not have heard the newer stuff, and so on, you know ?
HK : Yeah, it must be a bit of a worry, (slight understatement there !!). If you were to take a few days off, and then start again, what would you do differently next time ?
JT : Nothing, absolutely nothing. The venues have been the right size - CMP ( the promoters) have been absolutely brilliant, they've put up a lot of their own money and taken a chance with me, 'cos as you said, it's been a while, and it was difficult to judge whether the tour would sell, but it did, and I'm so pleased for them too, as well as myself. We're hoping to do a "second leg" in June of this year too, so that'll be really good - if that's the case, then maybe we'll change the set around a bit as well, but I really like the stuff we've been doing this time out .
HK : If you change the set, any clues to what you'd like to include?
JT : We'd really like to do "Undertsanding", which is a lot of people's favourite, but it's really hard to sing (laughs). When we're looking at the set we have to strike a balance between songs that are easy and dificult for me to sing, to get the balance right for my voice. With so many songs to choose from, people might think it's easy, but it's very difficult to be fair on my voice, and to get a balanced set too - almost a nightmare at times
HK : Do you ever see yourself doing "Black Furs " ( requested frequently on this tour), " Love on the Border" or " I'm Not A Loser" again ?
JT : I'd like to do some of the older "rock" tracks, maybe not the heavy metal ones though. I was never really sure about LOTB live, it was OK on record, and Loser is too heavy, it just wrecks my voice. Swimming Pools we'd love to do, and Walk Don't Walk, but we'll have to wait and see ...!
HK : Have you any idea which other UK gigs you will be doing on the next leg?
JT : No, not yet. We'd like to get to some of the places we didn't make on this tour, like Brighton, Oxford, Manchester and Bristol, but there's nothing confirmed. As soon as I get back home, I'm going to start hassling to find out, 'cos I really want to carry on. It's sort of scary really, because I've got right back into it again, and I wasn't really expecting to ..I mean, I knew it would be OK, but I didn't think I'd kind of love it like I have.
HK : You mentioned earlier that it was always a bit of a worry taking a new band on the road, but you must be so proud of them. To my mind they were really good at the start of the tour, but they just keep getting better and better. If you were to close your eyes, it could almost be like the good old days, when Pax, Paul, Bob, Rhino, Mike (Simmons) and Matt (Lettley) were there ....
JT : Thanks, that's really nice of you to say that, and I agree with you completely. I mean, the other night at Ronnie Scott's (Birmingham) was absolutely fantastic, the venue was brilliant, the audience was great - just a fantastic night, probably the best so far
HK : Yeah, Ronnie Scott's was the highlight for me too, particularly when you dragged Pax and Bob up for the encores.. Any other particular highlights come to mind ?
JT : There've been so many, and they all kind of merge together, but Guildford was great, becuase a lot of my family and friends were there, and Bailey did the backing vocals on "Dawn", and Plymouth was interesting too, because the first three rows of the audience were actually in front of the lighting rig. I was hot enough, but it must have been even hotter if you were one of them, what was it like?
HK : I thought I was asking the questions ! It was quite a night, that one !
JT : Rotherham was good too - in fact I enjoyed most of them for one reason or another, it was just great to get out and play to people again.
HK : What does the next 12 months hold in store for you?
JT : Well, as you know, we're in the throws of putting down another new album, "Secret Agent" has about 7 songs written, and we're hoping to finish writing and to start recording it very soon. We've also been recording some of the tour, so there'll be a live something, maybe a tape or CD out soon too, and of course we want to get back on the road as soon as we can - so there's plenty to keep us busy, as if that wasn't enough, we're going to get John's (John Robert Wood's band, Sneak, have signed to Jude's label) album finished and Lucie's (Lucie Silverman) album started.
HK : With "Under The Angels" only being available mail order at the moment, and of course at the gigs, how are the sales doing ?
JT : ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC - we're really thrilled with the response we've had, it's really surpassed what we thought. The added bonus is that a lot of people have been joining the mailing list too, so I now know where all the albums are going - I feel in touch with the fans again, which is really important to me.
HK : Final question - are you going to use the current band for the next album and tour?
JT : I'm gonna bloody try (said with a lot of commitment and conviction !). I'll be really upset if I don't, but they're a working band with commitments, Darrin's off to play with Bonnie Tyler, and the others have things in the pipeline , but they all want to do it. Annie's supposed to be going to Dance School, who knows what Lucie's going to be doing!, so we'll see. If we do change it though, it'll probably only be a couple of them. There's a whole group of people that I work with now, so we can chop and change. Like Peter Gordeno for example, and hopefully Bob ( Noble) will be around, and Graham Kearn on guitar, who played on "Angels" ...actually Peter and Graham were going to do this tour, but then they got taken up by George Michael and then U2, so I couldn't really compete! But it was through them that we met Richard and Dave, so they're interchangeable - hopefully..
HK : No more questions, Jude, thanks again for a great tour, and for letting me have the opportunity to talk to you at length, it's been great! have a great show tonight.
JT : My pleasure, and thanks for your support and enthusiasm.
And with that, off Jude went to soundcheck. The Swansea gig was great, and "For You" has now been renamed "For Huw" - a great end to a great tour! Roll on the next one!
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