Deborah Conway: 1999 Interview for this site

What is different about the new album?

Deborah : It's a band record so it's different to My Third Husband which was pretty much just the two of us working with a bunch of computers in a darkened room at the bottom of the flat.

Willy : This time we were working with people who aren't as smart as computers.

Deborah : We had to punch the information in several times; it's a very live sounding record and a bit more guitar rock than My Third Husband. I'd say it harks back to the earlier recordings, but String of Pearls was so folky. This is more ... rock.

Willy : Though people have been saying that we've been searching the outer limits of music again.

Is this the reaction you wanted?

Deborah : No, we actually wanted people to say "Wow, I can hear this all over Triple M" (laughs)

Willy : People have said we've made an interesting record, the curse again.

it sounded radio friendly live...

Deborah : I don't know what happened. I don't think it's changed dramatically between the gigs and the album, but obviously some things have changed.

Willy : It doesn't have the sheeny shinny gloss that, maybe, commercial radio expects.

When you listen to the record does it sound like the live shows or is it a produced studio sound?

Willy : As I said it's not a produced studio sound at all.

Is this record similar to any of the previous records?

Willy : I think there's a few elements of the earlier records but you can't compare it to any one particular record. It doesn't sound like any of the other records.

Deborah : String of Pearls and Bitch Epic were with studio bands. This band is different, these people wrote their own parts. That makes a big difference when people have that commitment to their own parts and they evolve over a period of playing live. That never happened with String of Pearls or Bitch Epic, they were written, then recorded, and then played. What I'd always wanted to do was do was to write, then play, and then record when it had been played in. I think it sounds different for those reasons. Ultrasound was a real band but then we didn't play first either.

Are you playing a big new years gigs?

Deborah : Not at this stage.

When will be new album be out?

Deborah : Late February. It would have been nice to have released it in 99, but what can you do with the Y2K bug. Apparently all CDs will be erased. (laughs)

Willy : We should release it on January the first.

Will the CD be Deborah Conway and the City of Women or will it just be a Deborah Conway CD?

Deborah : I have to ponder that one. Some of the band don't like the band name.

What are you trying to achieve both musically and personally with the new album?

Deborah : Huge riches - a lost cause. It's the same with every record, musically and personally, they're twin aims. You want to be happy with it yourself, secondly, you want the people you are working with to be happy with it. Thirdly you want the reviews to be kind, and possibly more than that. And then you want people to rush out and buy it and say "wow, this is great, this really moves me, I'll listen to this one forever, it will change your life"

Did you discover that you didn't like some songs playing live that you might have recorded otherwise?

Willy : We had some rejects. Songs that just didn't make it. There were actually lots of rejects on My Third Husband, lots more. We wrote the same amount of songs again.

Deborah : They're perfectly playable.

Willy : There are demos.

Deborah : I Lay My Head Down And I Cried All Night which is on the new album was pre-My Third Husband.

How important is commercial success?

Willy : How important is your wage, question asker?

Is commercial success attainable in the same way that it was when String of Pearls came out?

Deborah : Maybe not for us. Something happened between when we left for London and when we came back. There was this shift and I think we were out of the public eye for long enough that a whole generation grew up without listening to anything but It's Only the Beginning on Fox FM and subsequently that's what people associate me with. It's kind of hard to come back and say that's such a tiny tiny fraction of what I do with my friend here, Willy Zygier. It's a big hurdle to leap if you're not getting any radio play.

Were you surprised that My Third Husband didn't take off?

Deborah : No, probably not that surprised.

Willy : We still like it.

Deborah : it's a really good record, I think the songs are fantastic, I still think that.

Do you think that two years between records is too long to stay out of the public eye?

Deborah : No, I just think it's too little if the last record people heard on the radio was Alive and Brilliant in '93.

Have you considered writing the Olympic song?

Deborah : Not as yet.

Willy : Her mother has considered it.

If you hear radio stations play another Tina Arena song will it push you closer to mass murder? If so would you like some help?

Deborah : I stopped listening to the radio.

Willy : We love Tina Arena in this household. She is the archetype for the new record really.

How was the actual recording of this album different?

Willy : We recorded the drums in the studio and everything else was done at home.

Deborah : I think the difference has been the personnel. Having people who really are involved beyond drawing a wage or something, who have an emotional investment. It was really good to work with people who were excited.

Was it a conscious decision not to have a producer?

Deborah : We didn't miss a producer. Yes it was a completely conscious decision.

Willy : You need a producer if you need an opinion. Or you need a producer if you don't have enough musical ideas yourself and you need a guiding hand.

So why did you have a producer for My Third Husband?

Willy : Because it is demanded of you in the record industry basically.

Deborah : And also I think we needed another opinion in that instance as it was only the two of us and we'd hothoused it for such a long time, we felt that we needed to get some outside input.

Willy : To get a third person to say that is good and maybe that isn't. This time we had the band as well as ourselves. More than enough ideas and opinions, we didn't need anyone else to butt in.

What makes you angry?

Willy : You [deadpan]. Injustice. Intolerance. The tops of Calypo's because they're hard to get off. Especially for a four year old.

Deborah : Ants, when I've left something out and I get back and it's covered in ants it pisses me right off. Institutionalised hypocrisy and ants. Bad journalism.

You are known as being someone with firm opinions but your songs are consistently unpolitical.

Deborah : It depends on what you think politics is I suppose. If you think of politics as being specifically government then they have little to do with government. But politics can be a much wider spectrum than that I think.

Willy : They're still nothing to do with politics.

Deborah : Oh alright then. Maybe sexual politics, gender politics. Then again maybe they're a bit obscure.

Willy : They're not written from a polemical point of view. They're not there to give an opinion, they're not those kinds of lyrics, they're not pushing a barrow. They're not propaganda. They're viewpoints, questions. When I make my solo album it will sweep the Labor party into power.

When are you planning to do this?

Willy : I'm not really, as I don't want the Labor part to be swept into power. I don't know who I want to be in power.

What gives you hope?

Willy : Raindrops and roses.

Deborah : It strikes you at very odd times. It's generally to do with light and smells and and colour.

Willy : The last thirty seconds before the balls drop in Tattslotto, just see them gleaming as they spin around. Our babies... Not much. It's a rotten old world.

Deborah : Great art gives you hope doesn't it?

Willy : No way, great artists are arseholes.

Deborah : That doesn't have anything to do with it, who cares? Seeing great art and thinking that it might change the world. You can feel like that for at least five minutes when you've seen great art.

Willy : Technology gives you some hope. The internet is wonderful, a great way for people to communicate and subvert government.

Deborah : All things are equal before God and the internet.

Where is pop music going?

Deborah : Down the tubes.

Willy : It's going where it's always going. Technology is infusing it. That's where the advances are made in actual fact. It's a technologically based art form.

Deborah : It's really hard to know where pop music is going when you listen to commercial radio.

Willy : It's affected by dance, as it always has been. Pop music is dance music although we do our best not to make dance music. Pop music is fundamentally dance.

Deborah : Radio has always been at the forefront of what pop music is all about but it seems to have relinquished it's place. It more of a follower now than a leader, it just plays golden oldies. All the leading is done by subversive DJ's in late night clubs.

Willy : Pop music is in the hands of children. Pop music is made basically by young people for young people.

What next, overseas, film stardom, or the first elected president?

Deborah : What do you want?

Willy : I want them all.

Deborah : I'll take the president, you can have the movie star.

Willy : I think we should co-host a tonight show.

Deborah : Well hell if Mick Malloy can do it, sort of. I definitely don't want to be a TV celebrity. Maybe a TV cook Willy?

Willy : I could cook TVs.

Deborah : That would be fascinating, for about thirty seconds. I guess we'll just have to keep making records.

Willy : I am a musician. That's it. End of Story. Full Stop. Period.

added Monday, 23 August, 1999

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