"They are the only band I've ever met
who don't, even half-jokingly, seem to take their fans for granted or say
slightly mean things about having to interact with
fans."
JENNIFER NINE
INTERVIEW
Every Bush fan must be quite envious of Jennifer Nine; she has interacted with Bush's family, their friends, co-workers, managers, former band members, and the guys themselves in order to write the official biography of Bush, The Twenty-Seventh Letter. For those of us who have read the book, we've been through other sides of the story. Now it's time to see the process through Jennifer's eyes, and what a sight it is! |
| Why did you decide to become a
music journalist? Who do you write for? Do you do anything
else?
I started writing about music when I was at university and became entertainment editor of the university paper, The Varsity, at the University of Toronto. I thought that the idea that you could have a legitimate reason to meet the musicians they admired, and ask them questions they'd have the time to answer, was a fantastic idea. I was also excited by the idea of having a platform to tell other people about the bands I loved and maybe try to convince them that they should give those bands a listen! I presently write most often for two online companies, Music365 and Amazon.co.uk. I do occasional work for Time Out, a weekly listings magazine in London, and I have, in the past, written for the NME, Melody Maker, Vox, Uncut, The Guardian and The Times here in the UK. Music writing (I hesitate to call it journalism, as I think that belittles what proper journalists do) is more or less a sideline for me rather than a way to earn a living. That's probably just as well, as it's very hard to pay the bills writing about music, even in London, where there seem to be more music writers per square mile than any other city. My day job is marketing manager at an independent record label. I also manage two acts: one's a London-based three-piece band and the other is a singer-songwriter from Chicago. I'm lucky: everything I do, work-wise, has to do with music. I never imagined when I was studying English literature at university that I'd spend all of my adult life (so far) in the music business. Working for Melody Maker, what was your first impression of Bush when you met them and has that changed? The first I heard of Bush was when I started to read little news articles in the daily papers here about a band from London who were making it big in the States. I honestly hadn't heard of them before that, either when they were Future Primitive or when they'd become Bush. I knew of Nigel's old band, King Blank, and of course I'd heard of Robin's previous bands the Beautiful People and Sensation and Dave's time in Transvision Vamp. But I'd certainly never seen Bush. I figured that there had to be a good story in Bush, and being a recent arrival at the paper and not one of the biggest stars on the masthead, I had to search a little harder for story ideas because I wasn't cool enough (or perhaps a good enough writer - I'm not sure!) to get assigned to do big features on Oasis and Blur (though I was never a fan of either, so I didn't really mind). At the time Razorblade Suitcase came out, I persuaded my features editor at Melody Maker to let me interview them, though nobody at the paper, from what I could tell, thought much of them. Of course, it seemed as if the journalists who didn't think much of them often hadn't even heard the music. Neither had I, mind you, when I got interested in the story. When I first met the band for that feature - I went to the photo shoot we did the day before I interviewed Nigel and Gavin - I thought that Robin was very smart, tough and funny. Dave was very sweet-natured and relaxed and welcoming, as well as drily philosophical about the music press. Nigel was frank and witty and gave the impression he was nobody's fool. Gavin was articulate, soft-spoken, thoughtful and a little bit guarded ...but more than anything, he gave the impression of wanting to be kind and wanting to think the best of people even when he knew damned well that it would be safer to be rude and withdrawn and cynical. In fact, I don't think my impression of the four of them has really changed in the time I've had the privilege of talking to them and working with them; I think I've filled in the picture I have of each of them with more details, and all four of them are very complex people, but I think the people I saw that day more or less fit in with the people I think I know now. Initially, who's idea was it to have a biography about Bush written, and why was this the right time? It wasn't the band's idea. A publisher in London read my feature on Bush, and I suppose it was one of the first big features on them in a major music paper. This publisher rang up and asked if I would like to do a "quickie" book - they pay you a set fee and you spend a weekend stitching together quotes from other magazines, and the publisher buys a lot of photos from a photo agency and publishes the book without the permission of, or input from, the band. A quick cash-in job, in other words. No one had asked me to write a book before, and although I thought the publisher seemed a bit dodgy, I knew other journalists who had written these kinds of books about bands they geniunely liked, and I knew that these kind of books didn't necessarily have to be hatchet jobs. I asked the band what they thought about it and Nigel said, "well, if someone's going to write one of those books, it might as well be someone we like". In the end, however, another ex-Melody Maker writer, who had become the music editor at Virgin Books, heard about my being offered this deal with the quickie-book publisher, and told me that I should hold off signing it and that he was sure he could get me a much better offer, for a proper book, from Virgin. It took a year, but eventually it all got sorted out. I emphasised to the band and to Virgin that I didn't want to write the book unless the band were willing to participate and, in recompense, that the band were also allowed to see the book before it was published, and change or remove anything they didn't like. I knew it would be too hard to write a good book without talking to the band, and I didn't want to do it without them. I also knew that they had been stitched up in the press before and I wanted them to know that if they cooperated with me, I wouldn't betray that trust. I thought this was especially important if I was to be talking to their family and friends: it's one thing to expose yourself to the media when you're in a band and have had a certain amount of practise about knowing what to say and what not to say, but it's another matter entirely to have to worry about whether someone's going to take what your mum says and twist it or put it in a context that makes someone feel uncomfortable or hurt or misquoted. Frankly I wanted to write a book for fans and a book that made the band feel they had had their chance to have their say. I wanted to do everything possible to make sure that I wasn't remembered, by the band I liked and respected so much, as a sleazy or incompetent journalist whogot things terribly wrong either by accident or design.
When I was about eight, I wrote a book, optimistically subtitled Volume One, about a mouse named Fullbert who had some fairly tame adventures. My mother has the only copy. Is the change from journalist to "author" a drastic one to make? Well, I still don't consider myself a journalist! But I think I know what you mean. Basically the difference in my case is that writing a book that is twenty times as long as the longest feature I'd ever done before that meant that it was waaaaay more than twenty times as much work. I seriously underestimated how much of my life the book would take up, and I'm sure my friends thought I would drive myself, or them, crazy before it was done. I'm lucky that my editor, Ian Gittins, was so patient, as were the band, and two of Gavin's friends, Mark Armstrong and Alex Tate, who were both very sympathetic. It was more work than you can ever imagine. I never thought I'd see the day when it was done. Briefly, what was the process of compiling and writing the book? Briefly, I gave up my life for a year, and spent all my time reading everything I could about Bush via magazines, newspapers, websites and newsgroups and mailing lists, and finding out as much as I could about all the people involved in their story by talking to as many people as I could who knew them. I also read a few band biographies that other people had recommended to me as being quite good examples of the genre but that scared me so much I gave up. I did over sixty interviews with 48 people, so that took up most of the time, and I was still doing interviews almost up to the deadline. When the interviews were transcribed I went through them and highlighted the bits I needed; at the same time, I was getting a grasp of how the story would proceed (it's largely chronological) and working on a chapter outline and trying to work out how to fill in the gaps with more interviews. And then I sat at my computer and wrote and wrote and wrote, and did more interviews, and wrote some more, and tried to fix what I thought was wrong, and asked the opinion of a few people close to me and the project (including Bush's then-press officer in the UK) and then wrote and wrote some more. And then finally it was ready for the band to look at and make their comments, and then I made revisions and handed it in to the publisher. Do you remember the timespan that it took to write, and was it at all frustrating? It took me a year or more of work (interviews, preparation) and four solid months of writing. It was frustrating only because I also have a day job four days a week, and because it was difficult, with the band's schedule, to get all the interviews I needed. Things ended up being very last minute through nobody's fault especially, but it was very nerve- wracking. We all know that Bush has never been very fond of the press, especially in England. Did you have to "prove" to them that you were a tactful writer? I don't know if I have proven it yet! I hope that they trust me, and I think they do within reason, but it was definitely my goal to prove to them that I was trying to write a kind and true and sensitive book. If I were them, I wouldn't have trusted me. I was certainly chewing my fingernails the day I dropped off copies of the manuscript for all of them to read.
Mark Armstrong and Alex Tate were incredibly charming and witty and kind; Jasmine Lewis' story made me weep and was incredibly moving and I thought it formed one of the best parts of the book. But I'd have to say that Dave Parsons' mum, Annie, was quite the most lovely and charming and sweet and kind-hearted person I spoke to for this book. Anyone would want her for a mum! Was there a special message or meaning that you or the band wanted to get across in the book? I don't know what message the band wanted to get across, besides telling their own story. My goal was to allow everyone I interviewed to have their say with as little authorial intrusion as possible, which is why most of the book is in direct quotes. I definitely wanted to show what was lovely and honourable and worthy about the band and about the band members themselves, and to show (rather than tell) why they are worthy of admiration. I definitely didn't want to make their lives look like a triumph of luck or a Hollywoodized fantasy of super-rich rock star glamour, because they'd be the first to say it's not glamourous. What was the best part of writing The Twenty-Seventh Letter? The best part of writing the book was doing the interviews, and meeting all the people behind the story who had something revealing or funny or fond or kind-hearted to say about the band members. I loved meeting family members and learning why the band members grew up to be the people they did, though seeing who raised them and how they were raised. I loved the thought that the people whose stories normally aren't told in celebrity profiles - especially the women, from mums and sisters to girlfriends - were to be included in this story. Will we be seeing any more books at all from you in the future? Not unless Bush need another one and want me to do it. It was a lot like what my friends with kids tell me childbirth is like - it's great when it's over! Is there anything that you would like to share to the Bush fans that they may not have known before? 1. Mark Armstrong has the most impressive collection of photos of his mate Gavin (along with all of the rest of his gang) from the eighties. And although Gavin really really regrets the fact that he once had long hair, and probably cringes at some of the clothes he wore when he was a teenager, I can confidently report that I have yet to see a picture of him ever looking horrible, at any age! If he ever had an awkward spotty teenager phase, it mustn't have lasted very long. 2. Seriously, though, I guess the thing I can say is that they are the only band I've ever met who *don't*, even half-jokingly, seem to take their fans for granted or say slightly mean things about having to interact with fans. I can understand why bands get tired of constant attention, especially if they are quite famous, but I've never met four musicians who will, each and every one of them, unhesitatingly explain why being kind and thoughful and welcoming to their fans isn't just a good way to behave, it's the only way to behave, and that in fact the more a fan looks or feels like misfit or behaves awkwardly, the more it's just second-nature to go out of your way to pay them some special attention. It made me feel really proud of them. I'm glad I met them. They're quite something. |
Visit The Twenty-Seventh Letter website and purchase the book or look for it in your local book store! |
This interview is absolutely exclusive to BUBBLES and copyrighted © in the year of 2000 by RLB Productions. Please ask for permission to use any information. |
Check out the interview with Cyclefly, past openers for Bush in NYC and the U.K.!
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Was The
Twenty-Seventh Letter your first book to write?