InterviewDave Stewart talks to SDE about a life in music and Eurythmics reissues
Musician, producer, songwriter, entrepreneur and Eurythmic Dave Stewart was in town last week to promote Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This: A Life in Music, his superb new memoir. I sat down with him in his suite in The Hospital Club in London (a place he co-founded with former Microsoft boss Paul Allen) to discuss this memoir and also to raise the subject of Eurythmics back catalogue and reissues in general…
SuperDeluxeEdition: What made you write the book?
Dave Stewart: Well, throughout the last 30 years or so, whether I was at dinner, or chatting with a friend, they would go “bloody hell you should write a book, because it’s so nuts”. But my response would be “not really, I’m only 42”, or whatever.. But about a year and a half ago, two years ago, I was sat on the top floor of Penguin’s offices talking about somebody else’s book and I was chatting and they said “never mind that, you should write a memoir” because whatever I was talking about – they said – was ’memoir worthy’. So for the first time, I was in a publisher, with books everywhere and they’re saying “you should write one” so I’m thinking “I’m probably in the right place right now”. So it just seemed like “right place, right time” but I didn’t realise how painfully hard it was going to be, like turning a ship around and looking backwards. Going back was such a pain in the arse. I don’t advise anybody to do it.
SDE: Was it all just recollection? You didn’t keep any diaries, or anything?
DS: I didn’t keep any diaries, that was the problem. The first thing as soon as I walked out was it that it dawned on me that I couldn’t remember anything, which is not good for a memoir. And then also I did a ridiculous thing of… ah, I must be a writer now, so I’ll go off to Jamaica, on the edge of the sea, with a nice powder blue little room with a wooden table, all minimal and ‘write my memoir’! Of course, I sat there for about five days not writing a thing. And going up to the cocktail bars as soon as the sun was going down. I think like everything I was just trying to think of a method first, because anybody’s life – a guy who works in the fish market, or you or a taxi driver.. everybody’s life is so full of unexpected twists and turns. I panicked at the end of my Jamaica trip because I’d left my wife and kids for some quiet to be ‘a writer’ but I thought shit, there’s no way. I better go back to my oblique strategy and I went to the reception of the hotel and asked her for some sticky notes, and I stuck them on the wall and I wrote, important [events]… or epiphanies. You know, things that happened this year, that year. I had about 16 in a square. Then I stood back and took a picture of it – in case I lost them – and that was a kind of beginning, but it didn’t really help me remember what happened exactly, so then I spent a couple of weeks ringing friends around the world or inviting people round to dinner to remind me about 1984 in Australia, or whatever it was. But it was just bits and pieces, so then I was getting a bit down about it. But then a great thing happened, when I realised that I had taken photographs. Relatives and friends sent photographs from the past, and I had mountains of photographs… in storage, in boxes. I drove my family mad and all the people I work with mad, getting them out, with dust coming off them…
SDE: So they triggered all the memories…
DS: Then it was easy. I’d take one picture of me and Annie in a squat and look at it and go “oh, fucking hell, yeah. That was the kitchen and we’d have to climb over the rubble to get to the bathroom…”. You know, like they say ‘every picture tells a story’ but it definitely is true.
SDE: The period in the 1970s I find incredibly interesting because you did so much in that period that most people wouldn’t know too much about. They’d just think of Eurythmics as the start of everything. How did you cope with all the ups and downs, because at the beginning you were signed [as Longdancer] to Elton John’s record company, went on tour – it looked like you’d hit the jackpot…
DS: Well, you know what, we were so sort of naive, we didn’t even think there was a jackpot. We thought we’d already done it when we were in Elton’s offices and hanging around Wardour Street, which is where it was, and Island Music.. and look, there’s so and so from Traffic. That was the jackpot and the accountant would give us a weekly retainer in either grass or coke, or whatever. Oh and we’re going to get a van. That to us was mind boggling. We didn’t really think much about how to get into the charts. When the record company panicked after a bit, they thought or you must try and get a [hit] single and of course none of us know how to write one. I didn’t even write songs, anyway. Both crap, my songs on Longdancer albums, really bad. But then when it all broke up it was just, okay, that was the end of the music world, now I’m going to go off and sell Trojan dub records…
SDE: But you didn’t get all depressed that you’d been on some great high and now..
DS: No, but partly because it was diffused by a cloud of smoke and drugs. By then I’d started taking speed and smoking grass and you know…
SDE: That was the other thing I wanted to ask you about because the book is refreshingly unapologetic about drug usage. Any regrets about how much you indulged and did you have any hesitation about talking about that so frankly in the book?
DS: No hesitation. Really regret taking amphetamine sulphate for so long and the effect it had on me physically – I ended up in hospital and all sorts of things – and really wish I’d never seen the stuff. Or, my other regret is that while I was taking it I [should have] sat down and wrote songs, like Dylan did. But instead I just went around trying to get more of it. Fortunately, Annie understood something was wrong and she helped wean me off it quite cleverly without understanding anything about drugs or rehab.
SDE: Let’s talk about Eurythmics because I don’t think I’ve got quite as much time as I was hoping for…. I’m a big fan of the 1984 soundtrack…
DS: Me too!
SDE: …It’s an amazing album. One of the things I’ve noticed is that it always says ‘derived from Eurythmics original score from the film’. Does that mean that somewhere there is a longer more expanded piece of music that might see release at some point?
DS: What happened there was very interesting because Annie and I were in Nassau in the Bahamas, diverted there from a call from Richard Branson, saying “hey, I can book you into this studio and would you mind working on the score to this film”, without telling the Director, which caused this big hoo-ha, but which later the director realised wasn’t our fault. But we were really excited about this, because at the beginning we were doing all these weird experiments like Monkey, Monkey and all this weird shit. And we were going to get to do all this weird stuff again. We kept asking for the reels of the movie and kept asking for things, but of course we didn’t have cell phones, email. So it was like long distance calls from the Bahamas and sending packages. So anyway, we thought we’ve really got some great stuff going on and we recorded it in a weird way: we went outside with the junkanoo drummers who lit fires in their drums and we played weird instruments ourselves and went crazy about it. And yes, we made long weird twisted pieces. Like Julia, that’s got hardly anything, just Annie’s voice going backwards and forwards.
And for the job of recording and experimenting, in the mixing, I’d been pretty obsessed with some of those Sugar Hill records [Dave sings a bit of White Lines] and I looked up this guy called E.T. Thorngren and he’d worked with Talking Heads and a few other people. I asked him if he could do it and he said “I can, but at the same time I have to mix some of these tracks – Bob Marley: Legend”. So I used to nip in when he was doing that and he’d play me the most incredible stuff where he’d say “just listen to this” and he’d ‘solo’ one of the tracks [on the multi-track tapes] that was meant to be the horn players or whatever, and you’d hear them all talking [Dave adopts a Jamaican accent] “Yeah man, where dat spliff…” [laughs]. Every track you pressed there were people talking, but when you put it all together it sounded amazing. So the whole experience was great, until we found out that about Michael Radford who said “we didn’t ask for this soundtrack. I already have a score from this guy…” So we were like “oh shit. Well, whatever…”. Richard Branson – I don’t know how he got to do this, because we were signed to RCA/BMG – very cleverly got to put it out on Virgin. Why they agreed, I don’t know. But they did, and he put out the first single Sexcrime which was a big hit – banned in America, which made it even better for him, because everybody wanted it…
SDE: But is there somewhere a ‘director’s cut’ version of the soundtrack
DS: Well… there will be yes. Oh, to go with the movie? Well there are two versions of the movie. But there are tapes of extended weirdness.
SDE: This is the thing, you see. Because SuperDeluxeEdition is primarily about reissues and box sets, so I’m quite interested in the fact that you dipped your toe in the water in 2005 where you did those expanded single disc reissues, of all your albums – which were great – but time moves on and people are now releasing quite big box sets now…
DS: I know, well you see, our box set… we always did this kind of thing wrong. We had a greatest hits album and put 24 hits on it, so that’s that done. And then we did a boxed set called ‘Boxed’ it had all the albums in it and liner notes and every album had five or six extra tracks.. and put it all in a black box with the word ‘boxed’ on it and never released it anywhere, apart from England as a limited edition. Whereas myself personally…. well, there’s loads of things you could do, right?
SDE: Well, what you could do is go album-by-album and treat it as one piece of work and make a three or four disc set out of…
DS: Out of an album, I know…
SDE: Do you think that will ever happen?
DS: You know, we, inadvertently, are signed to Sony records. We don’t know anybody there, never talked to them. They’re a huge corporation and if you try to find Eurythmics on their website, you can’t find us. We seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. If it was just me and I was in control and I had a distribution deal, or something I’d be doing all sorts of fun things. I’d be pulling up remixes and everything…
SDE: Is that what puts you off, the fact you have to go back and re-engage with a big…
DS: … corporate company who along the way have lost masters, they didn’t care less. People changed jobs in the record label. I don’t think they understood for years, apart from some people. Interestingly enough, I was in the Motown archive and they understood, Warner Brothers, Mo Ostin and people like that, they’d go “this is art”. In our world – RCA turning into BMG turning into Sony – they probably had boxes of things. “This must be rubbish, throw this out”. I’m going “can I have the original photo from this In The Garden period?” [and the answer was] “Oh, we don’t know where it is”. So luckily, there was a boy called Laurence Stevens who’d just come out of college and we got him to work on all our album covers and he saved an image archive. But if I was to go to Sony now, which I might do as a test, because we have to deliver all the masters to them – and said “hey, I’d like to have back the multi-tracks of Be Yourself Tonight, I could probably find loads of things – songs we rejected etc… With 1984, Virgin might have actually done a better job. That’s one where we might be able to…
SDE: Yes, especially since that one was missed out, wasn’t it, in the original reissues?
DS: Yes, that’s because they wouldn’t put it in, BMG, because it was on Virgin. Stupid. We could have easily worked an agreement out with them. The problem is that Annie is married to a very nice man, a doctor, and she goes between South Africa and here and she’s working on all this other stuff and I’m in America and neither of us know anybody at Sony – they’ve all changed 100 times. It would have to be somebody’s…. plight. Things at labels have always been devious and dubious, but at least I used to know the gangsters back in the day, and they were good fun. You know, they’d put the gun on the table, they’d have a spliff, and they liked music. But now the world, really, is governed by corporations like Sony and then you’ve got Google… I actually made a funny tape, that will make you laugh of my phone call to YouTube to try and work out two things; why I never get a penny and why they keep taking down my own videos when I put them up, saying ‘these belong to Sony’. I’m going “yeah, but I made them, and I’m in them!”. The actual answer is hilarious. So hilarious that when I do talks I use it as an example of how bonkers everything has got. Then I started to put music to it, live, while the person’s talking.
[Dave plays me some the recording of the conversation he had with the person at YouTube, to which he’s added music!]
SDE: It’s a pity isn’t it, because in the book you talk about how you went and got the £5,000 bank loan post-In the Garden. When I was reading that I was thinking ‘you recorded it, you paid for it’ and in an ideal world you would have licensed it back to the record company.
DS: We were already stuck in a deal that started with The Tourists. It’s like a lot of bands, like the Beatles… you know you’re getting a penny in the pound. So yeah, getting the rights back… there is nothing I’d like more. It would be amazing. They’ve made more than half a billion over the years, I’m sure.
SDE: One thing that comes across in the book is spontaneity – you embracing an idea and running off with it. How important is spontaneity and is that a life lesson for people…. to be more spontaneous?
DS: Here’s the interesting thing, that people are slowly realising about me – people that have any interest at all – is that, yeah, Dave’s a bit crackers and a bit spontaneous, but then I actually do everything right to the end and finish it. Whether it’s a big building, or producing an album or whatever it is, but the idea – I never lose sight of what it was about. It’s very easy to lose sight and get dragged off. And that’s why I said that Annie and I didn’t really make demos. We we’re just like “this is the song – bang!”. When I go in the studio with people, I hate it when they say “this is my demo..” – “I don’t want to hear it!”. It’s that initial idea you have, that spark in the middle of the night, where you go “hey, every time it turns green on a traffic light, it should say ‘recycle’” – that wouldn’t cost much and it would get into people’s brain. My daughter thought of that when she was about eight. I still like that idea, so it’s like a Yorkshire Terrier for me, an idea, it keeps biting your ankle. Every now and again they rise to the surface and they get done, but it’s never a convoluted version, it’s always the spontaneous idea, [that was] written down on the scrap of paper, or whatever and you go back to it and say “I’ve got to try doing that one now”.
SDE: That’s what Mick Jagger says in the book, he gets annoyed because you always make him finish things…
DS: Yeah, he gets so annoyed.. he goes [Dave does Jagger voice] “Dave, no, it goes like that” and I go [gestures playing some audio back] “No actually, it goes like this”. I’ll show you something that will blow your mind, actually.
[At this point in the interview, Dave beckons me round to watch what’s on his laptop and types “mick” his personal video archive and shows me some great footage of him and Dave writing together in the 1980s.]
SDE: While we’re talking of videos, It’s crazy that Savage, the video album, came out on VHS, but it’s never been out on DVD!
DS: I know. So many people complain about that on the Eurythmics Facebook page…
SDE: Why didn’t it come out in 2005? It could have been a bonus disc on the Savage reissue?
DS: It’s all to do with the not caring, or understanding of the record label. We made video albums like We Too Are One, Savage… yeah, should be on blu-ray, should be on Netflix. It should be wherever you want it to be. They could be making income from it. I don’t know. They don’t care, really. Weird.
SDE: You have this amazing ability to get on with people, that’s clear from the book, which is a bit of a gift, really, because you can be as talented as you want in terms of music, but to be able to actually connect with and inspire other musicians, that’s another matter.
DS: I think it’s just because I’m having fun. I genuinely am having fun. The weird thing is, I’m not taking much notice of them, I’m running doing my stuff around like Willy Wonka. I’ll be in the flat, then I pop up the stairs and [I seem to] musically relax them and they say “It’s good, I’m looking over London…” and it slowly turns into something, you know?
SDE: Are the collaborations always as organic as they sound in the book. It’s not ‘your people’ talking to ‘their people’ etc.
DS: Never happens. It doesn’t matter who it is… This is funny, this is Kaya stumbling around Quincy Jones’ place. She must be about two there and she’s 16 now.
[Dave again shows me some personal video, this time of his daughter Kaya in Quincy Jones’ house. The wall has a cabinet with an enormous amount of GRAMMY awards on it!. Dave then shows me some video of Kaya Stewart as she is today, on tour performing her songs]
SDE: The industry is so different now from the heyday when you were having hits in the 1980s with Eurythmics. How do all the new business models work? Do you worry about…
DS: I don’t worry about her [Kaya] because she’s doing the old-fashioned touring thing. That’s the only way to build up and make a living – from live. She knows this and my son’s know it. But I still meet kids all the time who say, “great, how many records will I sell?” And I say, “let’s put it this way, Jon Bon Jovi sells out arenas and stadiums and his last album sold 40,000. So if you imagine… it probably costs him ten times that to make it…
SDE: Is that ever going to change? Do you think we’re effectively locked into that situation…
DS: It’s this thing about free. How do you compete with free? All the new generations and my kids, they’re used to getting everything free. They just go like that [clicks on a mouse] – I just did it with Kaya. I just typed “Kaya Stewart” and you’ll probably find every song she’s ever written come up. Unfortunately the world we’re in, it’s the only time where technology for everything else has expanded; so we used to watch a little black and white TV set, then it became bigger, then colour, then it became a plasma screen with great speakers. But sound started off with nice vinyl, and speakers, and then it went, small, small and everyone’s listening out of here [lifts mobile phone].
SDE: Do you still buy physical music?
DS: Me and my daughter go down to Amoeba records every month and where I sit [at home] in the study in the evening with my martini, I play my 1950’s vinyl. In fact it’s a mono vinyl deck and I play all these mono blues records and gospel, bluegrass and some Ray Charles and this and that. And then I have, obviously, Sonos all around the house, and I can choose anything and play it anywhere, but my tendency is to go in there [the study].
SDE: Do you ever listen back to your old albums, or is it a bit like a movie director not watching his own films?
DS: I never listen to them, although sometimes they come on the radio when I’m in the car, like Here Comes The Rain Again will come on and that’s quite interesting because you immediately go back to “oh, shit I should have [changed this or that]” But I always remember everything instantly about it. Like that was the Gretsch Country Gent [I was playing] and the orchestra that had to record in the hallway and in the toilet… and this happened and that happened.
SDE: With the sad news of George Martin’s passing yesterday, what about the role of the record producer? Is is the same as it’s always been or has it morphed into something else?
DS: There’s loads of different types of record producer’s now. Okay, the history of the record producing was the conductor of the orchestra. He was the record producer because he had to make the orchestra swell and this and that. Between him and the engineer, who moved the mics about, they were mixing it. Then it became it bit more complicated: more microphones, 4-track, 8-tracks, 16, 32, etc. Then it was like way out of control, where with guitars, you’d put 17 guitar tracks down. I think what happened a lot of the time then was they lost that spontaneity thing, and said “we’ll fix it in the mix, later on”. Fortunately Eurythmics never did that. We used the 8-track, even on our fourth album, which was one of the biggest, right? But the role of the record producer… someone like Paul Epworth is a traditional record producer. He bought the Church Studios which me and Annie built. I could see how he could go and take any kind of indie band, or Adele or whatever.. he’s made about recording and microphones…. And then there’s a kid in some basement in Brooklyn with a laptop… I mean, one of my favourite stories recently was this kid, who was trying to make a record, but his computer died and he couldn’t afford to get it fixed. So he started again by going into Apple Stores and he would secretly go on the computer, for like 15 minutes and he would download beats and do a bit of this and that and then he’d quickly get it out on a card and go to another Apple Store and carry on. And he made his whole album in all these Apple Stores, and I embrace that too. So it’s two extremes, Paul Epworth in the huge Church and some kid stealing it from the Apple Stores.
Thanks to Dave Stewart was talking to Paul Sinclair for SuperDeluxeEdition.
Thanks also to Emma and Mark at Kruger Cowne. Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This: A Life In Music is out now.
- • UK Order: Sweet Dreams Are Made of This
- • USA Order: Sweet Dreams Are Made of This
- • CANADA Order: Sweet Dreams Are Made of This
- • GERMANY Order: Sweet Dreams Are Made of This
- • FRANCE Order: Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This
SDE helps fans around the world discover physical music and discuss releases. To keep the site free, SDE participates in various affiliate programs, including Amazon and earns from qualifying purchases.
Related Content
News
[…] on the band and fans. I say that, because it was less than two years ago that Dave Stewart told SDE that “we don’t know anybody there [at Sony]”, adding: “They’re a huge […]
[…] The vinyl reissues will be out in 2018. Read SDE’s 2016 interview with Dave Stewart. […]
Any update Paul to Sony conversations?
Not really. I did approach Dave more formally, about helping with a potential 1984 reissue but for various reasons he doesn’t feel this is something he can move forward with.
Also, great insight Dave had into how the music biz works and what producers actually do…pretty cool he also shops for records regularly with Kaya at Amoeba, has a mono turntable and has a study for a listening room he hangs out in, sipping a martini…another tidbit…the Travelling Wilburys (with Roy) wrote and recorded their legendary debut record at his house in 1988…and footage is shown on the TW DVD in their boxset…looks like an awesome hangout pad with lots of sun and open space!!
Wow, cool interview!! Too bad I didn’t know about it back in March, as I discovered this site sometime afterwards…good thing I saw the link!! Always respected and loved Dave’s work, Eurythmics, pre & post. One of my fave things he produced was the tracks on Anastacia’s 2003 self-titled 3rd album, and he’s in the DVD in the Limited Edition, came across like a fun chap. Pretty amazing he kept mentioning his daughter Kaya, as her debut record on Warners was one of the best pop debut records of 2016, he co-produced it and co-wrote some of the songs alongside some that she wrote herself, which some have a Beatlesque vibe, and some have a Pink/Gaga hybrid sound. As for the “1984” soundtrack, I too love it, and now understand why it was on Virgin and not Sony, and would be killer to get an expanded version of it…an extended mix of “Sexcrime (1984)” would be amazing on CD. As for expanded Eurythmics and Tourists reissues, why can’t you be involved, Paul?? At least you gave your card to Dave, and don’t you know some of the Sony people?? Didn’t you work with them in getting your prized and beloved Paul Young 4CD box together?? Work again with them in finding Eurthmics/Tourists masters and cleaning them up!! I know you can do it. As for Longdancer masters, doesn’t Elton own them?? In the meantime, the existing Eurythmics 2005 single disc reissues are individual and budget cheap, so I can pick them up and have them until the situation changes…but again, great work Paul and killer talk…I have to pick up Dave’s book, the audio version…
If we ever do get further deluxe ones, please,Dave have someone good do the mastering. The previous deluxes were horrid sounding.
Dave & Spiritual cowboys have a 1990 live album from Cologne released in october 2016. (2CD + DVD 4:3).
The dvd contains funny backstage banter, Cry Baby Cry where he forgets the lyrics, plus a short interview of Dave and Holger Czukay or Connie Plank, i think.
Great interview, Sony need to get their finger out.
WOW! I”ve loved it! I can see much interest about Eurythmics! i wish a re-issue on 180gr. vynil but i think that it’ll remain a dream. It’ a pity… Anyway, thanks for interview!
Great material, as ever, Paul.
Just adding my voice to the clamour for extended versions of the Eurythmics back catalogue should you get the chance to be involved in anyway.
Like many, I was disappointed with the limits to what could be added as extras to the previous single disc sets, as nicely packaged as they were… and the lack of a 1984 upgrade.
@rob Precisely… I would love a 1984 remaster.
Great interview Paul.
Really hoping to get an expanded release of In The Garden which is my favourite album.
Keeping my fingers crossed and hope we’ll see a release with demos and outtakes from that period.
Sounds like you had quite a cool day Paul! I could have read the conversations between you and Dave for hours!
Thank you so much for this interview, particularly for mentioning “1984.” Just the suggestion from Dave that a super deluxe edition of that album could exist is the best news I’ve heard all year. If you can get yourself involved we will all be so happy. The work you did on the Tears For Fears box sets was spectacular.
Another excellent work by Paul, although one can almost hear the clock ticking in the background and your teeth gnashing at not being able to ask as many questions as you wanted to! A rather Annie-lite, and one wonders what the water-level is like between the two at the moment, as surely, considering their combined and solo sales, the record company accountants, if not the generically-titled ‘suits’ in charge, would be salivating like Pavlov’s dogs should the two of them join forces to the matter of re-issues. New material and a tour would of course be every fans dream – I think the ‘Mics and Little Richard are the two blank dance cards on my ‘must-see-live’ list – but we are well overdue some reissues by these truly talented artists – I mean, c’mon, if Nick Kamen can get a 2-CD! [Which came n’ went, ho, er ho]. With regards master tapes, considering his diligence, one assumes the much-missed Conny Plank had a set of spares of his Tourists and Eurythmics work. On a sidebar whilst here, who on Earth has pre-ordered enough copies of the Reality Tour 3-LP Box at over a hundred quid to put it in the top 20 of Amazon’s Box Set Best Seller’s!
Really enjoyed that interview Paul, thanks.
I think the book is a must read after that.
The guy is a genius, would love some SDE of Eurythmics vinyl.
A Eurythmics tour would be more than welcome
WOW!!!! Fantastic. SUPER Big THANKS to you Paul. Love receiving your emails, and Well got say this one Super Excited me. FANTASTIC, yes I wish you and Dave could of spoken all day and covered more topics, but for Moi, talking about “1984” an “Savage – video”, were the highlights for me. Could waffle on, but will keep it short, so once again THANKS.
Cherry Red doesn’t really shy away from not using masters so that’s why it’s not so hard for them to churn out reissues like that.
Nice interview. Dave is clearly very interested in expanded editions – so hopefully there are some possibilities there. For what it’s worth I was invited to The Hospital years ago as a potential freelancer.
Interesting, Mike. It’s quite a groovy set-up there.
Yeah, I did go and have a tour. I was up as a potential video editor I think, but I was more interested in SADiE which for some reason I wasn’t promoting myself for. (Can’t remember why, but I missed a trick there.)
This would have been around mid/late 2002 IIRC.
Cool interview with Dave Stewart, Paul !
Thanks for doing it. If you ever get an opportunity to interview Dave again ask him about his Tourists days.
I guess someone has to be willing to spend the money on elaborate sets and then for distribution and then for advertisement, as well as shelf space. Real honest question? I understand record stores do not like “multi disc sets” because they supposedly don’t sell. Apparently as soon as it has more than one disc the stores don’t like them because it starts to cut into sales. So my question is with all due respect (and I only hope for great things in the future so please don’t get me wrong here) has anyone ever made any money off of these types of releases? I’m not talking about assumptions is there anyone who can back up the claim or idea that there has ever been a profit with them?
Nice interview, you’re clearly a fan.
Takes me back to 1983 at Queen Mary College, Mile End Road, London for a very early Eurythmics gig. Me and the three other people who were in the audience had a great time, thanks Dave & Annie!
I don not understand why labels like Demon Music of Cherry Pop can come up with 2 or 3CD deluxe reissues (DVD included) of bands that were far less popular than Eurythmics. How on earth did they manage to collect all the material? Why is it that big companies seem to have lost important tapes and artwork, but smaller labels can actually release full documented boxes? Answer might be that the smaller labels don’t use the mastertapes, but most of their output sound good enough in my opinion.
Great interview. The first tape I ever got was Revenge in 1986 :)
More interviews please!!!!
Wow, what a great interview! Thank you Paul! And what a crappy world we live in when a class act like the Eurythmics can’t even re-issue their stuff because they don’t know anyone at Sony and no one there gives a sh*t!!! Unbelievable. Maybe someone over there reads this and wakes up.
Your website continues to amaze Paul. Thanks so very much. I read it every day hoping for a new nugget of news. Everyday you post new stuff. Even on Saturdays. It’s much appreciated!!
Thanks, and you’re welcome :)
Dear Paul, Great interview as usual. Top shelf website to boot.
Cheers Jim!
paul maybe it’s destiny that you meet dave!
it would be on you to make the new eurythmics re-releases and box sets.
i’m curious about that possible cooperation!
Ha! It would be a dream to get involved in anything Eurythmics-related. I did give Dave my card :) so you never know!
Yes Paul, don’t you know anyone at Sony who you can tell this crazy story to? They are sitting on lots of potential revenues but everyone is asleep at the wheel. I’m going to forward to an old record executive I personally know and ask him if he knows anyone at Sony. This is crazy!!
I have mentioned to Sony. I’m not sure it’s quite as black and white as Dave depicts, but there is no denying he feels let down and ignored.
One reason is since the late 1980’s and early 1990’s we have been dictated to that people only want to hear rap and country and not “old” music. Even if that were the case the public have been mindfucked to just disregard “old” music so there is no respect for it. Plus as much as I love and desperately want re-issues and expanded things it’s hard to sell something the public can’t afford. The pubic can’t afford much when there is no economy. Plus lawyers et al probably get involved. Of course I also like to think that there has been SOME strategy to product with intentions of even better re-releases in the future…
Thanks for the interview, Paul!
Just wish you received more straight forward responses to some of your questions, especially regarding the 1984 soundtrack. Dave seemed oblivious to the difference between the recordings used on the soundtrack to the film and the songs on their own LP. He probably doesn’t know about the isolated score featured on the current US blu-ray – the first time these recordings have been heard publicly, free from dialogue.
Sadly, Annie and Dave don’t appear to share a manager in the old-fashioned sense that can just deal with Eurythmics and sort out the relationships with the label. Would certainly help.
Great interview Paul. I really enjoyed that.
It’s funny, I have mixed feelings about the decline of the traditional record labels. On the one hand, they deserve what they get for fleecing consumers for as long as they did – and I’m not just talking about the cost of records, CDs, etc. The way they used to release tracks in some countries and not others was extremely frustrating as a record buyer. The other side of the coin is the fact that so much quality material will probably never see the light of day (e.g. Eurythmics) because of the convoluted way that “record companies” exist these days.
So, Paul. The question is do you want to try and persuade Dave to make it your plight to deal with Sony and see what tapes still exist etc?
Haha you have read my mind :)
Yes, that seemed like an opportunity for you!
Uh, what he said about Sony not knowing where the masters are anymore, pretty sure this is the case with Madonna and Warner Brother.
Great interview, Paul! I always liked Dave and his approach to producing. I would very much like to read Dave’s book, now. Apparently, he reads the audiobook version. That would be a kick!
Kevin- he does read the audio book and it’s incredible. Lots of music cuts and things in the audio book. Definitely worth checking out.
You’ve got me interested in this Dustin. Might have to buy it!
Wonderful interview!
I might buy the book, this interview is very interesting and I love Eurythmics to bits.
Thanks for the interview, Paul. A while back I thought I heard a nod that D&A were back in the studio muddling about, no particular timeframe or plan for a record, but, did Dave hint at ALL that he and Annie might be working on something in the future?
No he didn’t. I did mean to ask about future plans… but ran out of time.
Maybe as Dave mentioned during all the label upheavals stuff got lost or ruined. Perhaps some of the mixes that were left out on the 2005 cds were unavailable or lost.
Hi – Great interview. Did you ask if Eurythmics are ever going to record again?
Very good interview indeed. Well done! What on earth is the story behind the “Dave circa 1994” photo? Lol.
And I will restate my question…has Dave looked into the copyright termination option? He’s at the 35 year mark for ITG. The just two years away from SD and T. No excuses to not own his masters!
Excellent interview Paul. I would love to see the 1984 soundtrack reissued at some point. What if labels like Edsel or Cherry Red were too somehow acquire the rights from Sony and reissue stuff.
Thanks. Probably unlikely they’d license out, but that begs the question “why aren’t they doing anything with it?”
Is this something you could investigate with your sources?
Isn’t that he question we keep finding ourselves asking over and over lately? When someone comes to the label and asks to license something–which means there will be revenue, then why do any of these labels say no when they opt to not do anything with it themselves? Yes, they would probably make more if they did their own reissues, but they don’t want to be bothered with it, so….they’d rather just have no income from the material in their vaults at all than at least get the licensing fees?
You know, Paul- I was just thinking, after reading this. Dave and Annie DO both know someone at SONY these days – Clive Davis! I mean, maybe they don’t know him as well as they used to, but he’s Chief Creative Officer for SONY… maybe he could help!
Really great interview. Don’t really know much about him (aside from the music) but i find the way he ‘speaks’ so intriguing that I will be purchasing his book thanks to this. I wouldn’t have really thought about buying it before. Goes to show!
Great interview!
Great interview…. still missing infos about Spiritual cowboys era, and that damn boxset he mentioned on his site with all his solo stuff.
Wanted to ask Dave much more but really had to cram the questions in to a short period!
Yes! me too!!!!!