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Interview with Vashti Bunyan
Interviewed By: Amy Wagner
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U.K. singer/songwriter Vashti Bunyan is living one of the greatest stories in modern music history. She emerged on the London scene in the early 60s, was discovered by the flamboyant Andrew Loog Oldham, manager of the Rolling Stones, recorded a few singles and an album. Critics always praised her but somehow, she never quite caught fire with the 60s crowd. After toiling on the scene for a few years, Bunyan dropped out of the music world to raise her children. |
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What should have been seemed destined to never be . . . Until decades later, when her semi-lost album "Just Another Diamond Day" was rediscovered and heralded by Devendra Banhart, leader of the new folk movement. As the album began to make the rounds, Vashti Bunyan, herself was called back in the spotlight and has gone on to achieve one of the greatest 2nd acts the music world has ever seen. There was another celebrated album "Lookaftering", sold-out shows and artists lining up to collaborate with her.
Now, at 62 years of age, the legendary singer is looking back to the very beginning. Her new album "Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind" (DiCristina), due out November 13th, is a collection of singles and demos recorded between 1964-1967 when the now famous folkie had plans to make it big as, believe it or not, a pop star.
We dialed up Vashti at home to discuss the a little bit of then, a little bit of now and what we have to look forward to the future - a new album!
You're about to release a collection of singles and demos called "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind" that was recorded when you very young. What was it like going back and discovering this material?
Well, it's strange. They feel different to me all the time. It was quite odd but I've always liked or at least remembered that I've liked the ones that I did with Andrew [Loog Oldham], with the orchestral backing. Although I didn't hear them for a long time I always had them in my head fairly accurately soit wasn't so much of a surprise going back to hear those. But, the ones that my brother had recorded, I hadn't really heard very much so that was a surprise. The biggest surprise of all though was the one on the second CD. I literally hadn't heard that recording from the day I recorded it in 1964 until this April.
These songs have much more of a pop feel and sound than "Just Another Diamond Day" or Lookaftering". Was pop the direction you originally wanted to go in?
Yes. It never occurred to me to go in the direction of folk. But then, on the other hand, back then when Bob Dylan was first coming to mainstream popularity, he was described as a folk singer. I think in America it was a very different thing - the way a folk singer was portrayed there. A folk singer here was someone who sang traditional English songs from the 18th century. Whereas, I think, when people called Bob Dylan a folk singer it meant something very different in America to what it meant here. For me, it would never have occurred to me to call myself a folk singer because I didn't sing traditional songs and I didn't sing in a traditional manner.
Tell us about the first time you met Andrew Loog Oldham.
Oh, it was extraordinary! When I think of it now, I was just about 20 and he was just about 21 and yet, to me, he was the most worldly, terrifyingly sophisticated person. Of course, he was just a child but he was wearing this wonderful Italian shiny suit. It was incredibly beautiful and pretty. I was just wearing a scruffy jumper and old skirt and old shoes because I refused to be a glamourous singer in the way female singers were presented at that time. I just didn't' see why I should and yet, he was this wonderful vision. He didn't say a word to me. He just stood by the fireplace in this wonderfully elaborate plush agent's office who had introduced us. I just sat there with my guitar and sang a few songs and he said not a word to me and so I thought what am I doing here. Then I got a phone call the next day to say that he wanted to record me with a Mick Jagger and Keith Richards song.
What was it like to have your first single "Some Things Just In Your Mind" written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards?
They didn't actually write it for me. They wrote it and it was just one of those songs that was hanging about at the time and Andrew thought that it would be suitable for me. Mick Jagger was there when I was recording the song and, of course, I was completely star struck and numb with fear but it was an extraordinary day - the most wonderful day. The other thing was that I was a very shy person but I had this huge ego about my songs so I was fed up that I'd been given a Rolling Stones song to sing when I wanted to do my own. I got into trouble a bit for saying that but it was a wonderful thing to happen to me and I have no regrets about it now.
In the past few years, you've had the most incredible career renaissance. Did you ever think or maybe even hope that something like this would happen?
Oh, no! It would never have occurred to me. It would never have passed through my mind that there was ever a chance to do all of this all over again. I didn't manage it the first time around. There was a fair bit of publicity and lots of newspaper reviews and I did lots of T.V. and radio but I never actually broke through the first time, at all. It's not as if I'm coming back to it. It's as if I've had another chance to start it all over again right from the bottom. It is amazing. It's an amazing feeling to get this chance and I'm 62 now - it's crazy!
Any ideas why you didn't have the popular success that some of your
contemporaries like Donovan had?
I think I just wasn't pushy enough. There were very many people like me who were trying to do something a bit different and it was incredibly difficult to get seen if you were doing something a little different. They liked things to be all the same. Things moved fairly slowly until 1965 and then, of course, everything changed and youth took over. I think if I had carried on being a little bit more vocal about what I wanted to do, then maybe I could have been seen a bit more but I was quite shy, and I wasn't sure how things worked. I think it was the people who did know how it worked that got through and the rest of us just got left behind.
When did you first become aware that a whole new generation was championing you?
It happened quite slowly in that I became aware of a bootleg [of "Just Another Diamond Day"] in about 1996 and so I tried to find the rights to find out who owned what and what I could do about it. That took me quite awhile. It was reissued here in 2000 and it did have the most wonderful response amongst people who I thought would never even give it a second thought. Then, Devendra Banhart found in 2001. He was in Paris and he found it in a shop there and he played it for a whole lot of people over the next couple of years and got it reissued in the United States. That was when I began to realize that there was this whole different generation who understood it in a way that my contemporaries had never done - who understood me in a way that I had
not been understood before. It made me wish that they'd been around the first time. If there had been more people like them then maybe it might have worked the first time around.
Was returning to the music scene something you embraced whole-heartedly or did you have to be talked into it?
I was very excited as it gradually became clear to me that there was this opportunity now to actually pick up my guitar and write some more songs. I was very scared because I just didn't think I could do it again and also, I never did any live performances before. Andrew Oldham wouldn't allow me to go on the road. I think things might have been different if I had, but this was a totally new experience to me and I was very scared about that. I did have to be talked into it and I practically had to be pushed onto the stage by my daughter but once I'd gotten used to it, I thought I should have been doing this for much
longer. I really enjoyed it!
Are you going to be touring in support of this new album?
Not until next March because I'm supposed to be writing some new songs. I'm supposed to be shutting myself away and getting on with it and it's very hard.
Is this for a new album you're working on?
I hope so. It's taking me awhile. I decided I'd just do a bit of radio for this collection and then I'll start promoting it in the spring. We're going to tour a bit and I hope to come back to America. In the meantime, I'm supposed to have a whole album of songs ready to record in the spring so things are going to be busy.
Since you've been back on the scene you've recorded with Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective among others. What do you like the most about working with this new generation of artists?
Their inventiveness. Their imagination. They come up with things that just surprise me all the time. It's not as if they're trying to recreate something that happened in the 70s or to hark back to some other era. They seem to have made something entirely their own - especially, Animal Collective, who I have the utmost respect for . . . well, all of them I do, of course but Animal Collective and their musicality and the way that they carry on inventing and their live shows are never of things they've recorded. They're only of things they're inventing now. I think that's an extremely brave thing to do. If you ask me what I admire most about this generation, it's courage, really - courage to say what might be ridiculed and usually turns out to bring great admiration. I love them all.
Is there anyone out there that you haven't worked with yet that you would like to?
Not of that generation particularly but someone I would love to work with is Lambchop. Kurt Wagner is absolutely one of my favorite musicians. There are all kinds of people I would love to work with. Of this new generation, all I can say is that I sit and admire and wonder from a distance how extraordinary they are. I never presume that I could work with them, it's just when they say please come and do this . . .
When you look back on some of the things you did when you younger like journeying to the Isle of Skye with your family by horse and wagon, do you shake your head and say, "What was I thinking!" or would you do it all over again?
If I were back in the situation I was in when I made the decision to take that journey, I would definitely do it all over again. If my children were to try to do it now, with things the way they are, I would be very anxious for them. At the time, there was still so much innocence about. I think we just jumped into it. If we had known what we were facing then maybe we wouldn't but our innocence carried us through and also educated us in a very profound way. Yes, I would do it all over again. |
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