Thomas Dolby 1984

 

Thomas Dolby began his US tour to support his newest release, "The Flat Earth" recorded in Belgium in 1983. His spring appearance at New York's Radio City Music Hall, the fifth date into the tour, marked the achievement of a personal hallmark for Thomas: "I'm not usually nervous at all but Radio City has stuck in my mind right from the planning stage. Playing there is a statement - 'this is different' - that's the kind of attitude I want people to have to me here. I've seen two concerts here before - Prince, and the other was Marvin Gaye.

"The odd thing was, I had to call for a doctor before the show and he told me I was the second person he'd had to treat right before a Radio City show. The other was Marvin Gaye."

 

The Flat Earth Tour: "All the money I've ever made I've invested in this tour. If it doesn't pay off I'll be broke - if it does I'll be a millionaire. I have no aspirations for speedboats and fast living. I need to sell records because it's a measure of success. I don't need to make money beyond being comfortable and having cash for new projects. Risk and danger are very important. I'd feel very ill at ease if there was no danger."

feeling ill: "I think it must be partly psychosomatic. I'm so in awe of this place. I just don't seem to have any energy. I feel spaced out all day."

Thomas speaks of his commercial releases to date:

"The first LP was really a collection of different sessions of songs written over a long period of time - it was full of loads of different moods. When I went in to do 'Flat Earth' I actually had very few ideas, nothing was complete - I'd decided that I wanted to work out grooves with a group, whereas on the first one I just started everything with a straight electronic background. So I assembled the musicians I most respected - Kevin Armstrong who'd played guitar on the first LP, bassist Matthew Seligman, whom I've known for years and who was in the Thompson Twins - he's very much my right hand man, a sounding board always there to bounce ideas off, and Clif Brigden, who was a real discovery and had a great deal of energy, whose role was to put down computer drum patterns with live percussion on top. The actual feeling in the studio was great and when I listened to the stuff back in England it didn't need much extra work - all I did was a little subversion on them."

"'I Scare Myself' is probably the classic on the record. 'Hyperactive' is the most instant and the most instantly forgettable because it's the most state of the art and the least timeless. 'Screen Kiss' is underrated by a lot of people but it's one of my favorites - it's the song I was the most emotionally involved in. It felt very odd because at that time I was passionately in love, which is something I generally seperate from my work, because I don't want to wwrite songs about 'ooh ooh baby I love you' - I was always too proud to do that. It's also a very fragile song. We didn't even play it live in Britain because it's very difficult to pull off. Everything has to be very delicate. The fretless bass and percussion make it very touch and go."

"The songs that I'm most proud of are early tunes like 'Weightless' and 'Cloudburst', they're probably much closer in atmosphere to what I'm doing now. The least pleasing are the hit singles 'Europa' and 'Science'. They're the ones where I wasn't trying very hard and they're a little throwaway."

 

pop vs. cult status:

"I'm much more of a cult follower than pop; people like Dan Hicks, Captain Beefheart, Robert Wyatt, XTC, Talking Heads, Television, Joni Mitchell... I like occasional pop hits but I suppose it loses its value once it's everywhere. I like things to be personal, my own little secret.

"As far as writing obvious pop songs, I know it was a shock when the record company heard the new LP because the predictable thing would have been to record 'She Blinded me with Science' over and over again. They were... uh... concerned about the commerciality of The Flat Earth. I told them to get lost.

"It's much better when stuff like 'Cloudburst' actually gets through to a smaller number of people but in a much deeper way. It's much better to build up some sort of following - it gives you much more opportunity to take chances."

the ups and downs of touring:

"I've enjoyed it so far but if I were to do it again I might put my foot down... space things out a bit and not do any promotion. Sometimes I think, is it really worth doing another eight hours of interviews for what might be one higher place in the chart? Obviously a lot does depend on this tour, but I am finding out slowly as I go along. I'd certainly never get into that routine of doing an album and then a tour. The only real value of touring is that I get to meet a few real people - when I meet someone who I can see I've got through to it's very gratifying. It renews my self-assurance."

 

involvement with film:

"There are two possibilities. I might start a couple of soundtracks; the other is to actually make a feature myself. I've an idea based on the Dolby's Cube project. I suppose it's close to the British Electric Foundation idea. It would have an album to go with it but that would be secondary. It's not a video album, much more a straight cinema film. I've got a loose story line. It's abstract fiction. I was considering doing the '1984' soundtrack which interested me but I thought was jumping in at the deep end - maybe I should do something a little less. Making incidental music is a dying art. People like John Williams and Vangelis just deliver 20 or 30 minutes of music and the editors just mix it to taste. In the old days... I have this great romantic image of of an orchestra in front of the screen. The best music is in stuff like Hitchcock's films, where a simple melody line can change the whole conception of the visuals. That's what I want to do. It'll be a while before I'm back in the studio again."

on his image as an English performer in America:

"When lots of UK bands come over here they immediately start going 'Hey New York!' and hanging out in all the right clubs. I tend to go in the other direction and become even more English than I am. I feel like an expatriate Briton - David Niven in a Hollywood movie. It's important that I'm seen as being an import - from the outside - part of the old school. I don't think I'm lumped together with the UK invasion, I'm out on a limb. As the first solo performer I'm set apart. That early image was very much a part of my personality, I felt very distanced, very independent and very proud. Hence that isolated, loner image."

on doing small gigs at local clubs:

" If the pop success were to die away I could see myself ending up doing small clubs just with a piano. It'd be really good, much more of a test of myself as a performer than using all the props of the big show. Sometimes I do feel a bit older than my age. I feel I have more in common with the Dan Hicks and the Tom Waits and the Van Morrisons than any of the pop scene. In the UK it's entirely teenage oriented. Maybe I should go off and do those clubs right now."