Kate St John: Interview
1994
The All Saints Bugle

JJ: When did you first realise you had an interest in music?

KSJ: I listened to all sorts of music as a child and at Primary school I learnt the recorder. I played in a Saturday morning recorder orchestra when I was eleven, on of thirty sheep. Then one day a girl came along with an oboe. I really loved the sound but she wouldn't let me try it. I started learning the oboe soon after and got involved in my secondary school orchestra, especially when I found out you could get out of netball or hockey for rehearsals. My parents weren't particularly musical, though my mum used to sing in the London Youth Choir. However they were always supportive of my musical efforts and I was very lucky in that they could afford to buy me an oboe.

JJ: What was it that kicked off your involvement as a musician as a profession? Did you stumble onto it, or was it a conscious decision?

KSJ: I went to music college and did a degree in music at City University in London. During that time I played in a lot of orchestras and had an oboe trio. I was pretty well set up for a career as a classical musician. However, my heart wasn't really in it. I dropped out of music college after a year because I loathed it. I felt like an alien there, everyone had such tunnel vision. So when Virginia Astley, a friend from the university, asked me to join her group for some shows backing Teardrop Explodes in the Pyramid Club in Liverpool, I jumped at the chance. That was the Ravishing Beauties and I loved it. It was total chaos.

JJ: You must have had early influences. Who were they and what was it about them that interested you?

KSJ: I'm not sure about the concept of influences. In my case they are very subliminal. I've always been useless at copying people. As a child I loved The Beatles and The Monkees. I also liked ballet music because I did ballet for years. In my early teens I liked Psychedelic music and mostly American artists; Neil Young, James Taylor, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Crosby Still and Nash, the Beach Boys, etc., etc., but I don't know if they are influences.

JJ: You play a number of instruments, but you also sing? Which is your true vocation?

KSJ: I don't have one true vocation, but I think singing and playing wind instruments are linked by their physical nature. For me, singing is another form of self expression, but with the prop or shield of an instrument. Vocations develop as you get older and change. You exhaust one set of possibilities and you move on to new ones.

JJ: What was is about the oboe that attracted you to it? People don't really associate the oboe with pop as such.

KSJ: The tone of the oboe seems to suit the feelings I have inside me. It is also very expressive and poignant and capable of subtle nuance. It is used a lot in Baroque music, which I love, especially when layered in harmonies. I was always trying to get this sound on to Dream Academy records and finally succeeded on our third album A Different Kind of Weather on the track St Valentine's Day.

JJ: Your first band was the Ravishing Beauties. They never made a record despite being the darlings of the music press. Why was that?

KSJ: We never made a record because the other two argued so much about the contract that was offered we just gave up.

JJ: So, your first recording experience was with the Dream Academy?

KSJ: No. The Ravishing Beauties did a few sessions for Radio One; John Peel, who called us the Very Lynns of the Eighties, and also for John Walters. I'd also done sessions for other people on the oboe. I was sad when the Ravishing Beauties split up because by then I'd got hooked into that sort of music and didn't know how to find another band who'd want an oboe player. However, about a year later I met Nick (the singer of the Dream Academy) and it turned out he and Gilbert were looking for people who played 'weird' instruments. I ended up being with them for eight years, during which time we made three albums. I also learnt the saxophone during that time and a lot about recording and the music industry.

JJ: There must be aspects of both bands that you miss.

KSJ: Actually I now don't miss anything from those bands. I love working with other people but I wouldn't relish the experience of being in that kind of band again. Too many egos. I loke being my own boss.

JJ: Do you know whta the members of each band are up to now?

KSJ: Virginia Astley is a best friend. She is working on a second album for a Japanese label and is writing a musical. Nicky Holland lives in New York and has a solo deal with Sony. Nick Laird-Clowes is demoing and has been meditating in Nepal recently. Ha! Gilbert is no doubt doing some crazy musical scheme somewhere.

JJ: Where did you find yourself after the band broke up?

KSJ: The day Dream Academy was dropped from Warner Brothers I danced for joy and cracked open the champagne.

JJ: You've been working with Roger Eno a lot recently. He seems like the sort of person who knows exactly what he wants. How do you fit in with him or indeed him with you?

KSJ: Meeting and working with Roger was a revelation and a joy. He gave me space to write and sing in my own way. No bullshit and lots of respect. We fitted in very well with each other, a very similar musical wavelength. Not identical but complimentary. Two secret Radio 2 listeners.

JJ: You have also worked with Bill Nelson quite a lot recently, on The Familiar and Automatic. Tell us what Bill brings to the record, how he works, and how you fit in with each other.

KSJ: Bill's experience was vital to the CLV project. When you have five people improvising together the accummulation of spontaneous variables can often result in a murky indefinite mess. I noticed how often he would stick to one or two guitar riffs throughout a piece to give everyone else a constant to work off. Secondly, the polishing up and rhythmical elements he added in his mixes pushed the whole thing into a higher gear.

JJ: You are a writer of course as well as a performer. Is a Kate St John record inside waiting to come out?

KSJ: Definitely.

JJ: And what would that record consist of?

KSJ: The best things I have at that point in time. Songs with maybe a couple of instrumentals.

JJ: And what exactly is the Kate St John sound? How would you define your music, your compositions?

KSJ: It's tricky to try and define yourself. I'm interested in simplicity, purity and directness. I don't like too many frills or being too clever for cleverness sake. My musical hinterland seems to veer towards an expression of innocence - a world seen through untainted eyes but with the tempering of adult experience. If I could achieve anything near the kind of vulnerability and subtlety that Chet Baker does, in the relatively classical idiom that I write in, I'd be happy.

JJ: Your approach has often been described as very English. What does this actually mean?

KSJ: I'm not sure. Perhaps the oboe reminds people of Delius or Vaughn Williams, but he's Welsh. Roger's music does often have a quintessential Englishness about it so I suppose it brought the English out in me. At the moment, the stuff I'm working on now has more of an old fashioned European feel to it. As I said earlier, it's hard to be conscious about influences. They are certainly not restricted to music. Often I find myself trying to recreate or hint at the atmosphere of a particular film or book in my music or words. It's usually semi-conscious, but I think that is a good thing. Otherwise you get artifice or pastiche. Sometimes you hear something and find it pops up again in compositions years later. The digestion of influences is a complicated process. The only obvious musical influence I have now is of popular as opposed to classical - French chansons, roughly between the 1930's and the 1960's. They are very fresh, charming and romantic.

JJ: Moving on to the other side of your career, I know a lot of people are interested in your work with Van Morrison, if for no other reason that it seems like an interesting mixture. Are you allowed to be yourself on stage with him, or do you feel that you are more or less a session musician - just a job?

KSJ: If you weren't yourself on stage with Van, he probably wouldn't have you in the band. Obviously he does set certain parameters in terms of styles and parts, but in the solos he appreciates the expression of your individuality. I wouldn't be a session musician for just anyone. I couldn't bear to play music night after night that I didn't like or for someone I didn't respect. It's nearly always exciting and inspiring onstage with Van - and it's also just a job.

JJ: Are you a studio person, a live person or a bit of both?

KSJ: They're two completely different things, but as long as I'm working with the right people, I like both. I don't mind dabbling with a bit of user friendly technology, it uses a different part of the mind, but I'm not a boffin. At home I use and Atari music computer with Notator software which is hooked up to a Korg M1. It's very useful for fiddling around with keyboard arrangements, tempos, and keys etc., but I prefer to use real instruments for the real thing. I've just bought a Fostex 8-track. With that, my DAT and SPX reverb, I'm pretty happy.

JJ: Lastly, people often ask how to start as a musician, how to get a deal, etc. What is the best advice you ever got about this sort of thing?

KSJ: Be tenacious, follow your own instincts, don't be discouraged by critics and don't take yourself too seriously.