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Last Updated: Aug 28, 2009

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Reviews and Interviews By Scott Lewis
Lewis lives in Dallas, Texas, by way of Houston.

He writes Catching Up With . . . celebrity interviews for This Week in Texas as well as movie reviews .

Scott Lewis can be reached by e-mail HERE

Catching Up with . . . Alison Moyet By Scott Lewis Oct 13, 2008

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I have been a great fan of Alison Moyet for more years than I would care to admit. I have dreamed of seeing her live as long as I can remember. I have seen her perform on You Tube, but it has always been a dream the day I would actually be there in the hall experiencing Alison Moyet. If you are not familiar with Alison, she together with Vince Clarke were Yazoo. They together created electonica. They went their separate ways before their second album was even released. Both efforts are classics unequalled to this day. Moyet went on to great solo success, to date she has sold more than twenty million albums. Her talent is more diverse than any other artist I can name. She is as at home singing a fast paced dance track as she is singing a classic from George and Ira Gershwin. I was delighted to see that she was coming to America to tour for the first time in fifteen years. I caught up with Alison at her home just outside London’Ķ.

Scott Lewis: You started your singing career after dropping out of High School going from band to band, singing in pubs. Was singing a calling for you?

Alison Moyet: I don’Äôt know that singing was really a calling for me, it was more a case of when I left school I was disaffected, unqualified. There wasn’Äôt a great deal going on. I lived in a town where there was no culture, nothing to do and there was no money anyway. Becoming a part of a band was very much a part of our social path. Everybody was in a band and we just met up in car parks and parks and like you said, in pubs and places with one another. It was more of that I was a singer less because I thought I had a voice and more because I had the buffo, I didn’Äôt mind fronting a band and I wrote lyrics.

SL: After bouncing from band to band you placed an ad in a magazine called Melody Maker looking to create your own. What were you looking for and what did you find?

AM: I was looking to do kind of English R & B which doesn’Äôt really relate to what’Äôs happening in R & B now. It’Äôs the kind of music that was played by bands like Dr. Feelgood and The Who. It was a bit rougher. That is what I was looking for That is what I was doing. Vince (Vince Clarke of Depeche Mode then and Erasure now) answered the ad but that is not how he was introduced to me. I used to play in a punk band with his best friend Rob. Vince knew me anyway because I had been a bit of a face around town. From the time I was about fifteen. So it was just a bit of serendipity that he found my ad there.

SL: Together the two of you revolutionized music. You created a new kind of music.

AM: I suppose we did, but that was more luck than judgment. Both of us were discovering music making at the time and it just so happened that electronic was a burgeoning technology and so we were kind of creating sound rather that following anything. There was not really anything to follow at the time. Every sound we made had to be created, rather that lifted or sampled.

SL: Yazoo was immediately successful.

AM: It was amazing. Vince had written a song that he wanted me to demo with him which was ’ÄúOnly You’Äù. Hearing that, his record company thought that we should record it then try and make an album together. We went into the studio and by the time we came out three months later we had this massive hit all around the world. It kind of meant that we never got to know each other. We never had time to go drinking or hang out. It was kind of this very strange situation that kind of strangers had this massive band together.

SL: By the time you released your second album, the two of you split up. Is this why?

AM: The funny thing is that we knew that was going to happen before we even started recording it. He had already a bit of success in Depeche Mode and going from being a bit of a black sheep as I was to being incredible recognizable within a matter of weeks, it was quite shocking. We didn’Äôt really support each other. There was really no understanding of each other so when it got tricky, which it does when you are suddenly in so much demand, we had nothing to fall back on.

SL: You then release a solo album ’ÄúAlf’Äù which was when I first discovered you. I was a gay boy all of thirteen coming to grips with his gayness, but I felt as if I had to keep it a secret. I felt as if I couldn’Äôt be who I really was. I felt invisible. Then one day on MTV I saw your video for ’ÄúInvisible’Äù. This was back when MTV played videos. There was such honesty in your words, ’ÄúI feel like I’Äôm invisible.’Äù Was that reflective of your life?

AM: Well, I think definitely the way I perform, or the way that I sing is that way. You know I was never trained and as such the thing that shows when I sing is kind of a raw emotion. I would say that ’ÄúInvisible’Äù is one of the few songs that I didn’Äôt write so in that sense it has less of an earnestness lyrically than a lot of my other songs. It certainly was a part of something that connected with people. I think for lots of people that feel disaffected or separate in some way, recognize that in me.

SL: One of the most amazing things to me about your talent is your ability to seamlessly go from one music genre to another. You seem equally as comfortable performing dance, pop, R&B, Standards, or the blues. Which is your favorite music to perform?

AM: I don’Äôt know that I have a favorite; I would say that Blues is my most natural form in the sense that it is the one area that I can improvise in quite easily. From the age fifteen I was listening to Sonny Boy Williams and Billy Boy Arnold and those kinds of scales are kind of very ingrained in me. At the same time I grew up in a really eclectic house as far as music goes. My father was a French man. We were exposed to a lot of Chanson. My mother was a quiet English woman who liked Classical music and my sister was a soul girl. My brother listened to punk rock and folk music. There was never any kind of one particular sound that we had in the house. It was always kind of incredibly eclectic and I can’Äôt say that there was any that I preferred to listen to than any other. I just like good music in all those formats.

SL: Tell me what chanson is?

AM: Its French torch song, I suppose. The great Jacques Briel is my favorite. Edith Piaf. People like that. You get a lot of those songs that get translated into English but that don’Äôt have the kind ugliness that the French lyrics have. It’Äôs blunt, it’Äôs tortured and it deals with ugliness and deceit and all those kind of things. There is an anger and a bitchiness behind it that is more defiant.

SL: I have had to search for your albums here in the US over the years. I don’Äôt know if that was intentional, but it appears as if you are now making an effort to reintroduce yourself to America. Was there a reason that after ’ÄúAlf’Äù you kind of disappeared from the US?

AM: I got pregnant very young. When I started making Alf was when I got pregnant with my first child. That really tempered everything. I had to make a decision. To work a place like America it’Äôs a constant. You have to be dedicated to it. I had to live the way I had been brought up and that was to not really pawn it (the baby) off on someone else really.

SL: You have also been successful in the last seven or eight years on the stage.

AM: You know performance is what I do and acting is just another extension of that. It’Äôs the only job I’Äôve really done since like sixteen is to perform and is the one place where I’Äôm actually more comfortable. It’Äôs bizarre, I’Äôm less nervous on stage than I am at say a drinks party. Having to talk one on one to somebody that I don’Äôt know can be quite terrifying for me. Whereas loosing yourself in a performance is something that is tremendously comforting.

SL: Your most recent stage performance was with Dawn French (Saunders & French, The Vicar of Dibly) in Smaller. I understand that you two are great friends.

AM: Yeah, she is one of my best friends. We have known each other since I was twenty-one. Doing something together is something that we both wanted to do. I mean, both of our careers keep us busy, so it was hard to ever finish an evening where we feel we’Äôve said everything that we needed to say to each other. We really wanted to have some extended time together and to see how our different disciplines could fit together.

SL: Is it as much fun to work with her as I imagine?

AM: Well it is fun to work with her, but as is the case with all comediennes I am sure it is not like they are kind of on when they are off. Our relationship is kind of intense and deep and we confide in each other. When we talk it is usually far, far darker than delight and laughter.

SL: The Turn is your seventh solo release. Tell me about this album.

AM: For me it is an album that basically about wanting to deal with melody and intelligent adult lyricism. I’Äôve become so tired of pop music in the sense that there is so much vocal embellishment that it kind of obliterates melody. I wanted to write an album where you weren’Äôt afraid to hold a note. It’Äôs more a case of wanting to deal with song, and specifically song that would translate to the stage. In other words I could perform those songs as easy with a guitar as I could with an orchestra and not lose their identity in some way.

SL: You bring up an interesting point. There is so much tinkering if you will with vocals. This industry has become so commercial where it used to be about the music, now it about the sales. You have what I believe is one of the greatest voices in music today, bar none, do you find it frustrating that you have the Britney Spears that have the look, they run their voices through a computer, teach them some dance moves and they sell a great deal of albums. They have sales, but no necessarily a great deal of talent.

AM: It doesn’Äôt bother me really, people use music to encapsulate so many different things. I remember what it is to be a young person and what you are looking for is escapism, and escapism is not what I am looking for. I don’Äôt resent fluff, but for me a successful record is one that three years after I make it I am not embarrassed by.

SL: I have happily come to expect from each of your albums a variety of styles, The Turn is no different. It is fresh, it is emotional, there is something there for me no matter my mood. Is that intentional?

AM: It is intentional in that the person it is intended for is me. I am a person that wants some depth to my music and I think that most people who look beyond the kind of clouds and are looking for something more than a catchy beat. You know if they are honest, if they are able to stand apart from the fashionista, will find something there.

SL: What can we expect from Alison Moyet on stage?

AM: Well it’Äôs quite raw. It’Äôs entirely live and completely played. There is no enhancing or tampering with tunes. There are not backing tracks that support it. This gig for me in America is going to be slightly different from my English and European gigs because I have toured here pretty consistently. Here I’Äôve been able to focus around whichever album I’Äôm interested in at that time.

I am aware that fourteen years of not having played in America there are fans who have been incredibly loyal and supportive who have never had the chance to hear me sing live three or four albums back so it is going to encapsulate that more than an English show would. It is not going to be based around singles, it is going to be based around what I feel are the meatier album tracks and anyone who is a fan of me will know those songs as well as they would any single release.

SL: You talk about your loyal following here in the States and you do have a great following in the Gay Community. To what do you attribute your following in the Gay Community?

AM: I think it is hard to say. It is going to be different for every individual. I just think that there is a more eager musical attachment which is not based on if someone finds me shag worthy or not. And when that is the case, when people appreciate your music and it has less to do about the fact they want to wank over your picture it’Äôs going to have a bit more honesty to it.

SL: That’Äôs Fabulous! You recently toured with Vince in the Yazoo Reconnected tour. Is there any chance of new Yazoo music or is Yazoo a great piece of History that is going to stay that way?

AM: I’Äôve got a feeling it is going to be the last of it. There was talk about the fact that we would try to write together when we were on tour, but to be honest being on the road is not the best environment for it. You are traveling, you are preparing for the shows, also when we decided to get together it was when Andy Bell had said that he wanted a two year break from Erasure, I read recently that he might want to go on the road with them again, so Vince’Äôs first sort of call would be Erasure so if that’Äôs what Andy’Äôs up for doing now I think that is what his focus is going to be.
Alison tours the U.S. for the first time in over fifteen years beginning in October. She lands in Dallas at the Lakewood Theater on Friday, October 17th and Houston at Numbers on Saturday, October 18th.

Visit Alison at www.alisonmoyet.com or a micro site dedicated to her newest release is www.alisonmoyettheturn.com

Opening for Alison is Brendan James. Brennan’Äôs new CD The Day is Brave is AMAZING. I have not connected with a debut CD like this since Tracy Chapman’Äôs. Brendan is the complete package. He can sing, the songs have meaning, and the uncredited star is his piano. This CD has not left my car player since I got it. You must hear the tracks Green, Hero’Äôs Song (a tribute to the men and women at war) and The Other Side. I cannot wait to see the man behind the music.
Visit Brendan at www.brendanjames.com

© This Week In Texas


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