Elvis and Steve on the Jonathon Ross Show transcribed

[laughingcrow]

Hi everyone...here is the transcribed interview from this morning on BBC radio 2's Jonathon Ross show. It was (as usual) a pretty funny and lively interview, and they all seemed to be having a laugh. You can listen to the interview, and get a better feel for it at...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/

click on the big purple link that says LISTEN AGAIN, and click Jonathon Ross, EC's inteview is about 30-40 minutes into the show.


JR = Jonathon Ross, host
A = Andy, co-host/producer
EC = no prizes for guessing who
SN = one and only Professor Steve Nieve


JR: We have with us Mr Elvis Costello and Mr Steve Nieve, we couldn't be happier. It's always a treat when talent of such magnitude comes in.

A: Yeah.

JR: You know, without blowing his trumpet, unnecessarily...shall i start again. that's an unwieldy phrase and there's only men in the room, it all sounds a bit...

A: Slightly awkward.

JR: It all sounds a bit dutch. What I mean to say is, I think, one of the most talented singer-songwriters of the last twenty/thirty years, no doubt about it, you know? HUGE talent, sitting right here now.

A: Yeah.

JR: And lost a bit of weight, so not as huge as the last time we saw him (EC laughs). Elvis it's great to have you back though, and congratulations on the new album.

EC: Thankyou.

JR: We played a track earlier (they played When Green Eyes Turn Blue), beautiful.

EC: Thankyou very much.

JR: Who's produced this?

EC: I produced it with Kevin Killen.

JR: Sounds great.

EC: Thankyou.

JR: So now what's the decision here, where you do...the last album was kind of a return to rock'n'roll form I guess. It was the standard setup we know from a rock'n'roll combo unit. This time it's you, piano, some orchestration on some of the tracks, but others sort of stripped down to the bone. What prompts you? What steers you in that direction?

EC: A group of songs that just wouldn't be denied. You know? I was writing them as fast as I could get them down, and didn't know I was making a record, just thought I was writing some songs. We were on the road actually, with the Imposters, after When I Was Cruel came out as you say, and towards the end of last year, sort of late September, we were in the last stage of a world tour touring America for the second time. We were doing two and a half hour shows, the most ferocious shows I think that band has done.

JR: I'm surprised that Pete Thomas, on drums of course, survived! Man of his age, when you get to some of those faster tracks! (EC laughs) You know, I saw, he did, he got very red in the face. I thought 'That's it..get me a defibrulator!'

EC: He was doing pretty good, I have to say.

JR: But that must be exhausting for all of you, doing that kind of tour?

EC: Yeah, we're pretty..you know, you can get stronger in certain key ways Jonathon. I'm sure you know.

JR: (laughing) As you get older.

EC: I have hidden strengths... anyway these songs were coming to me, and they were waking me up at night. So, sometimes you put songs aside, and you let them, you know, sort of, rattle around the head till you get the lines that finish them, other times it's essential, and that was the case with these ones. So by new years day I had a group of songs, and I took a little step back and I realised that that was the next record.

JR: And how do you compose? Do you compose on guitar, or at the piano?

EC: These particular ones were all written on the piano, which is...Steve is here thankfully, you know it's not an instrument I really truthfully play, but it's an instrument I can compose using.

JR: But you pick out the chords I guess?

EC: Oh, I can hear a lot of stuff. I did all the orchestration on the record as well, so I can hear complicated stuff, I just don't have technique as a pianist. I can play when nobody's looking.

JR: But you wouldn't wanna do it live?

EC: I do occasionally play piano on stage, but we thought for you we'd bring Steve in from Paris.

JR: And then we have Steve laughing by the side when you're on stage.

EC: Yeah.

SN: I think he's being very modest because he's got very particular piano style, Mr Costello.

JR: And what grade would you put him at in the piano grading? (everyone laughs) I've got my number 1 coming up soon.

SN: I'd put him pretty highly up there actually.

JR: What, four? Five?

SN: Much higher than that.

JR: Can he cite read?

SN: I don't think...

A: He's in the room, you could ask him!

JR: No, no, we'll talk about him as if he weren't. (EC laughs) You know in the old days when you used to talk about...

EC: I can't actually cite read. I learned to read music down about ten years ago, and that helped me be able to communicate to people who only get their information off the page. But we do a lot of stuff..

JR: People like Steve, who are almost autistic. (EC laughs) But you went back to college to learn, didn't you?

EC: No I didn't, no, I just had a friend who got me... I had a mental block about that, all that F A C E stuff you know, that they teach you at school, and I just never learnt it properly. Once I learnt it, it just becomes another way to communicate. Sometimes you show people, sometimes you write it down, that's as simple as that. It's just code, it's only code.

JR: Yeah. Yeah but it is quite tough to master isn't it? When you're playing, is your left hand weaker than your right hand?

EC: No, my left hand is much stronger 'cos I'm left handed.

JR: So you're more of a boogie woogie?

EC: Err yes.

JR: But thankfully you don't play that. Isn't it about time Jools Holland got the message?
(everyone laughs) We don't wanna hear it anymore! When's the last time you thought 'You know what I want? Some good old boogie woogie. Where's my Jools Holland album'? (everyone laughs). I won't draw you on that.

EC: (laughing) Yes.

JR: These are very personal songs though aren't they?

EC: They are yeah, I think they come...all songs are personal though aren't they? They all come out of your head.

JR: But these seem more so than others.

EC: Yeah, I think there's no denying that. They are... I wrote them in these low keys, and sometimes when you write songs late at night, you're singing to yourself but imagining a much louder sound. With these I didn't, I was imagining the sound of this record, orchestra and everything, while I was writing them. I kept them close to me, they're very direct lyrically, they're not... there's no irony, no kinda games with words, no disguises. So what you hear is what they're saying.

JR: But that's interesting, because that's one of the things that, as a lyricist, has always marked you. The fact that you've always been brilliant with words, you've always had the ability to create situations, set up puns, and ironic asides and comments and write about things...

EC: Thankyou. There's also...yeah...also, one is I've done it a lot, and two is some of those devices, their appeal is somewhat juvenile.

JR: Of course. That's why we love 'em!

EC: (laughs) But these are, in the words of Muddy Waters, 'I'm a full grown man'.

JR: Well, yeah, that's it. What we're gonna do is play you a bit of music, go to the news, after we can chat some more and then we'll give you a chance to warm up your fingers Steve, we're gonna insist that you do the playing today, and that'll all be happening after this.

THEY PLAY BEN FOLDS GREAT VERSION OF THE CURE'S 'IN BETWEEN DAYS', THEN TO THE 11AM NEWS, THEN PLAY THE SPECIALS 'HEY LITTLE RICH GIRL'

JR: That's The Specials. That was a great time, when people were making that music and you guys were rocking out. What a great time. Do you remember it fondly? When was that, early 80's I guess? 81/82?

EC: Err the first Specials record was 1980 I think, I produced it.

JR: I forgot you produced it! Yeah...I remember it being quite bad.

EC: Down under... in a basement under a launderette in Fulham Road.

JR: But it can't be hard producing an album, can it? You just say 'Off you go fellas' and record it don't you?

EC: I can't remember. I think that's why I did it actually.

JR: That's how Nick Lowe did all your early stuff, 'You sing over there and I'll put it on tape'.

EC: 'And I'll drink some Blue Nun'

JR: Yeah, exactly...class act. Erm, are you friendly with Nick Lowe still?

EC: Oh God, yeah yeah yeah, I don't see him though as often as I'd like. Last time I saw him it was halfway up a mountain in Japan. We played the Fuji rock festival, and when we got there, there was a rather bewildered looking chap in a mac, and it was Nick. He'd played earlier in the day, and I think he was quite pleased to see us turn up.

JR: He does have a sort of bewildered air about him these days doesn't he? I think it's just being sober for a while must do that to him.

EC: I think it's just finding yourself there, and people that here him they go 'How is this guy not incredibly famous, 'cos he's written all these amazing songs, produced all these amazing records'. Half the new rock'n'roll groups in America want him to be producer and he's just not interested, because I guess he doesn't feel that kind of music.

JR: Yeah, but he is a HUGE talent, and when he preforms he's great of course. Er, can I ask you a question? Do you think I'm being temperamental at all by insisting on new lighting here?

EC: (laughing) New lighting? Yes, it's angle poise.

JR: Look at this you see? Steve's forced to play piano over there with an old angle poise. He looks like he's in the corner of a pub!

EC: An old angle poise yes. It's come down, it's definitely from the Hugh Carlton Green era that lighting.

JR: Well this is what I'm talking about. I feel embarassed to welcome our guests in. It's like it's shabby. I'm sitting on a chair with a hole in, you're standing, and you're sitting at a piano with a lamp you can barely see your fingers.

EC: I used to like coming to the BBC, because they always used to have some of that water from when Winston Churchill was here.

JR: (laughing) Mixed with Churchill's phlegm.

EC: (laughing) Nice bit of dust on the BBC water.

JR: Little bit of Legionnaires disease knockin 'round here still. You're gonna play from the album now, let me just ask you something. Do you think this is one of those albums which when I listen to it, I listen to it from start to finish in the order it appears in. Although we played a track earlier, and we took it out and it sounded great. But I think it benefits this album from listening to in that order. More so than most albums.

EC: I think when you're alone with it, or with someone you like to listen with, I think it will work. Because it does, I didn't realise this when I was writing it, but it sort of tells a kind of story. It starts out in a sort of desolate place, and gradually gets more towards joy.

JR: It's warmer yeah.

EC: Yeah. It's all about... all the songs are about love, but as we know there are different facets to that story. Sometimes when you have feelings you don't admit them to yourselves, and you know, you're bewildered by them, and little by little you have to except your own failures and joy can enter your life when you least expect it. That's sort of what the songs sing about, so if you here a song in isolation, one of the darker songs might sound really bereft, but that doesn't mean that people might not see themselves in them. People are having all sorts of experiences at different parts of their life, they're in different parts of... even a relationship. So I wrote them for other people to hear as much as they're personal to me. I'm looking forward to performing the songs in concert because we've got a decision to make. Whether we do perform them in sequence, because I didn't sit down and say 'I'm going to write a sequence, a song cycle or something'. I just wrote it as they were songs then realised they fitted together and it can be heard in that way, but we'll just sing one of them now.

JR: Yeah, it does seem to me that listening to it, if you do listen to it in sequence as you said, it's like you're going on a journey. There's an emotional journey.

EC: Definitely. Just saying that doesn't make it grandiose...it's just truthful, and I'm proud of it, in the directness of the words, and there are some joyful moments in it. There's even a bit, when people fall in love they often realise realise that they make themselves seem ridiculous because they never stop talking about it, you know, it's their only topic of conversation, and there's a song called 'Let Me Tell You About It' that talks about that. So it's not all intense in the most melancholy aspects, there are different sort of moods in each song.

JR: There's light and shade.

EC: I hope so.

JR: You're going to play which track for us now, and where does abouts that fall in the album?

EC: This is where the album starts to look into the more optimistic view, it's a song called Still, and really I don't think I should say what it is, I should just sing it shouldn't I?

JR: Let's do it then...

'STILL' IS PERFORMED

JR: As I said, far too classy for this show! That sounded great.

EC: Thankyou.

JR: And Steve, congratulations, those lessons are paying off. (SN laughs) I'm really looking forward to growing with this album, to playing it more. It's one of those albums that I think you have to listen to a number of times, it's not the most immediate album. It is delightful...

EC: Well there's a world where we live in, where everything is screaming and shouting for attention, whereas we made a record where we are trying to draw people into it, and I hope that they can spend a lot of time like you say. Too many records you wanna throw them out the window, they might be attractive at first and then they're maddening aren't they. So we're trying to do a different thing.

JR: But is it a less commercial venture something like this, do you feel?

EC: I don't necessarily think so. The history of my records tells me that all my biggest hits have been with ballads. I didn't make it because of that, over the years I've had more success with ballads than rock'n'roll, though I may be known for it. People...a small critical chorus in this country gets highly excited, you know it's mainly men in their late thirties who live alone with a cat and don't know any women, and I don't mean to say that they're gay, you know, who write for music papers, tend to get very..kind of..rather..perspiring when we make a rock'n'roll record. When you address a record like this perhaps, to all of humanity that will listen, you just don't know what's gonna happen. I think if you do something you believe in and it's in your heart, you really can't go wrong.

JR: Yeah. I always love hearing ballads though, I love people singing about emotions. I love Charles Aznavour and people like that.

EC: I had a hit with one of his songs you know.

JR: Of Course you did, and you murdered it.

EC: I've been trying to live it down ever since (laughing).

JR: (does EC impression) Sheeeeeeee. That was the one I remember.

EC: Richard Curtis, who you know, asked me to do that for Notting Hill, actually said 'I'm going to ruin your reputation'.

SN: Came close.

JR: OK, Elvis, you and me know, we'll do 'She' together. Come onnn..one, two, three...(both sing Sheeeeee) People in France tuning out.

EC: (laughing) People in France can probably here you, what are you talking about!?

JR: The album it's a tremendous...it's what critics would say is a mature piece of work. That's what people say about it.

EC: I don't think mature...mature always sounds like cheese to me, it's adult, it's adult music. You know, I'm 49, and I'm an adult and I don't have any embarrassement about that. It's real emotion, there's real stuff in it, whether it's your life or mine or somebody elses. It's not a grandiose thing, it's not an art record that nobody can understand, the lyrics are very direct, the tunes as you can hear are comprehensible and I hope memorable.

JR: It's interesting because ballads tend to be about emotions and more complex issues. Rock'n'roll and R'n'B and stuff that tend to be about sex. Did you thing about putting a bonus track on here, you know like 'Booty, booty, booty'?

EC: Actually you know I think they have done in Europe (laughs).

JR: 'I've been through the journey, now I'm gonna get me some good stuff!'

EC: Yeah, I think that only comes out in certain territories or through specific internet sites.

JR: I'd like a copy of that.

EC: Meet Ukranian girls.

JR: I know the ones you mean. I'm delighted you came on the show, thankyou so much again. Steve, it's always lovely to see you. Elvis, you sounded great, you're voice seems to be getting better as you get older.

EC: I hope so.

JR: Which is a great thing.

EC: Yeah Im enjoying singing, and I really love singing these songs. They feel like something as you sing them, I don't ever drift away as I'm singing them you know?

JR: May I also congratulate you on your new glasses.

EC: New glasses.

JR: Look at that.. there's a bit in the middle, which is alarming at first 'cos you think somethings fallen out, then you realise it's a design feature.

EC: (laughing) That's my nose!

JR: (laughing) You do sometimes look like as if you take the glasses off the nose will come with them.

EC: That's the size of it yeah, it's a big target!

JR: Well, with Steve as well, it's two of the biggest noses in show-business, and mines getting bigger!

EC: Have you ever seen us and Pete Townsend in the same room?

JR: The three of us together could make a Jimmy Durante competition, or WC Fields, what a marvellous lineup! For ladies who like the bigger nose, this is the place to be! (everyone laughs) Andy look at your tiny little nose!

A: I'm out of pace!

JR: You know what they say, big nose, big........glasses rest (everyone laughs). Elvis thanks for coming in, lovely to see you. Steve take care and best of luck with this album, I'm sure it'll do well. I'm certainly glad you made it whether it sells a lot or not.

EC: Yeah so am I, that's the way it is.

JR: And it's also beautiful packaging...even better!

EC: Thankyou.

[DrJ]

Cool. I tuned in at a quarter past eleven and missed the whole thing, but Ross' show is funny.

As a trivia note, for those in the US or whatever, it's worth pointing out that JRoss began his career with a chat show called "The Last Resort" in 1987 and from the second season onwards his houseband was Steve Nieve and the Playboys. Steve led JR's band through to about 1992/3 and usually PThomas was on the drums. So obviously JR knows the two of them well. I remember when Pete left the show in 1991 (to go on tour with the Rude 5) Ross made him wear a coat of many crisps and would check in on him as he toured.

I also recall EC not being a big Ross fan at the time.

DrJ

[Otis Westinghouse]

It was really enjoyable. Ross can overdo his repertoire, but he's often good in interviews, and generally plays good music. Bowie on the TV last night (playing New Killer Star and a very nice rendition of Modern Love), and then Elv this morning on the radio - not bad for a weekend's work. 'Still' was fabulous with just piano, and made me realise that these songs are going to work really well in this format (not that I've heard North yet), and it was interesting to hear of the dilemma of which order to play the songs in on the EC/SN dates. I think he should bite the bullet and just play all of North in the correct order, and then pick from the divine backlist. 'Still' is a great song, I've heard it a few times now, and can't get it out of my head. Such a lovely melody.

[DrJ]

If you access the show thru the BBC website, you'll find you can't go to a particular point in the show and have to listen to it "live" so to speak.

However...

Open Real Player and Open Location and enter this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/rpms/ross.rpm

... then you can whizz to the bit with EC, start at 39 minutes...

DrJ

[Otis Westinghouse]

So that's how you do it! Thanks Dr J - that's gonna make life easier. Does it only work for the duration of its time on the BBC site (one week)? Or does it somehow store it for further use? I guess not.

[DrJ]

Nah, next week it'll link you to next week's show.

DrJ

[selfmademug]

Thanks for posting that, esp for those of us who can't get such stuff. It's encouraging to hear someone acknowledge/explain that the songs on NORTH take time. The critics who only give it a listen or two just don't get it, because the melodies aren't instanatly accessible, as Elvis confirms. Once you get them, though, they're indelible, at least in the case of the middle chunk of the record. I'll say again how much I love CAN YOU BE TRUE, as well as WHEN IT SINGS, and FALLEN.

[shabbydoll]

I was impressed by the truthful bit, that is how I like Elvis' writing the most, when he is honest. Yes, thanks for putting that down for us, very interesting.

[PlaythingOrPet]

Elvis sounded like he was having a good time. I can honestly say that's the first time I've ever heard Steve's voice, excluding his "singing".

Ohh, to be in that dark and cramped studio with those three....., big noses or not .

[Goody2Shoes]

Well, that was fun! Thanks, laughingcrow!

Will the 23rd never come?

[Otis Westinghouse]

Sorry, stupid question.

Slightly less stupid, I hope, question: how do you find that URL for the show? It doesn't seem to appear when you listen straight off the BBC site.

Official: THE BBC ARE FUCKING BASTARDS! Someone mentioned that Bowie was to be on the Richard Allinson show yesterday, and as I was busy, I just tried to listen now, and it isn't fucking there! they ahave pretty well every other show possible, but not that. Why? Is there some bizarre legal reason? I can't believe how unfair this is. Public service broadcasting! I wan't my money back.

[DrJ]

When the player window is open on your web browser, view the source code for the page and have a root around for a reference URL that fits. Then use that URL in your player. It often works for pages with inbuild Real Player or Windows Media stuff.

DrJ

[mood swung]

thanks laughing crow for the transcript and drj for the shortcut. sounded like a good time was had by all.

[bobster]

Another big thanks for posting this....

BTW: Some of us yank film geeks (you know, the ones in their late thirties and very early forties who live at home with their cats -- but I'll have you know that my cat is a woman-cat!) do know J. Ross from "The Incredibly Strange Film Show" which kind of helped get the whole "psychotronic" thing going several years back. He's often described here (even by SN) as "the English David Letterman."

[Otis Westinghouse]

Nice allusion to Elvis's dig at certain music critics, Bobster! TISFS was fun, as far as I remember. He's quite good at the outlandish stuff, but less convincing as a straight film buff. He presents a weekly film that reviews new releases, which, though entertaining, is just not engaging enough. He was easy to make fun of, but I preferred Barry Norman. I do rate JR both as a radio and TV presenter. He can be very funny.