{"id":639,"date":"2019-04-10T09:51:26","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T08:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.advertizer.co.uk\/insight\/?p=639"},"modified":"2019-04-16T14:25:25","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T13:25:25","slug":"639","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.advertizer.co.uk\/insight\/639\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddi Reader Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The eldest of seven children, Eddi Reader, grew up in a two-bed tenement in Glasgow. In 1976 the family were rehoused 25 miles away in Irvine, but Eddi stayed with her Grandma in Glasgow to finish school. She started playing guitar at age 10 and began her musical career busking, first in Glasgow\u2019s Sauchiehall Street and later around Europe. This is where we begin\u2026<\/span><\/h5>\n

Were your<\/span> parents worried about your vagabond lifestyle (whilst busking in France)?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mum and dad had been a bit worried about me. I was totally a child of the Germaine Greer generation\u2026They don\u2019t realise what they did, those older feminists. There was a generational shift. I remember [later] Jenni Murray from Women\u2019s Hour being a bit disappointed in me for wearing lipstick and wearing a dress and doing a bit of a femme fetale thing. But that wasn\u2019t the point. I wasn\u2019t gonna reject my femininity, \u2018I can do ANYTHING because I am equal, and I can achieve anything I want to.\u2019<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t doubt her ability to do anything she wants. Talking to Eddi is like unlocking a dam and you can\u2019t help but get swept along with the force of the current!<\/em><\/p>\n

Not long after returning from Europe, Eddi answered an ad in the music press resulting in her moving to London to join punk band Gang of Four. After touring America with them, she started working as a session singer in London and later created the band Fairground Attraction who, in 1984, produced a number 1 selling album and a Brit Award. She continues…<\/em><\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t feel effortful. I bet on my instincts to win and I did. I just followed my nose. I wasn\u2019t a straight person. I didn\u2019t feel that anything would satisfy me in terms of the straight life \u2013 the boyfriend, the mortgage, the job. I did fall in love with guys. That was brilliant. My heart getting broke every five minutes. I enjoyed that whole experience and sometimes music took a back seat, but I was always creative. I was a very creative girl. Still am.<\/p>\n

Were your family creative and musical when you were growing up?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My dad was a real rock \u2018n\u2019 roller and my mum was very romantically involved with music from an early age. I was given guitar lessons at school. It is something I am so thankful for. It makes me SO ANGRY that they are taking this away from schools… from kids. And the thing is, it pays dividends. I did pay tax when we got to number 1! You see! It pays dividends!<\/p>\n

Eddi doesn\u2019t fit neatly into boxes and neither does her new album, Cavalier, and I think both are the better for that. There are traditional songs such as Maiden\u2019s Lament and the hauntingly beautiful Dierdre\u2019s Farewell to Scotland, next to full on pop songs such as Wonderful and title track Cavalier. The latter written by her husband John Douglas of the Trashcan Sinatras. There are also a huge amount of friends, musicians and collaborators on this album, some of whom include John McCusker, Phil Cunningham, Kev McGuire and long time friend and collaborator, Boo Hewerdine.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an on-going war with me, the genre war. Where do you fit musically and what is your niche? I\u2019ve always rejected any kind of categorisation in that way\u2026 The title\u2019s about freedom. Being cavalier, being free. But I couldn\u2019t very well call it \u2018Freedom\u2019. Not now that people know my politics. They\u2019d have thought I\u2019ve gone the full Mel Gibson!<\/p>\n

I read that most of this album was recorded live? Isn\u2019t that quite unusual these days\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, well, the mood of the music when it is committed to a recording, the feeling behind it, is what\u2019s carried through. If you\u2019re miserable, then that\u2019s what will be carried through. You can\u2019t make a happy song when you are feeling miserable.
We get to talking about playing in front of an audience… I don\u2019t like having monitor sounds. I like having the \u2018out front\u2019 sound played back to me so it bounces off the walls and I can hear what everyone else is hearing. People think it\u2019s unusual not to rely on monitors, but for me I don\u2019t like hearing my voice coming out a wee box. I like hearing it bounce off the walls… and through into ears… travelling… I like to gestalt the experience… I like to imagine how it hits the other person so when I am scanning my head for the next song\u2013 usually before or during the applause for the song I\u2019m singing, it\u2019s generally the right thing. The right song. It\u2019s about plugging into that energy.<\/p>\n

Your music packs a huge emotional punch and has moved me to tears before. Do you ever find it difficult to sing a song? Do you ever get emotional when on stage?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ummm… Dear John can be difficult. It was written by people in the misery of divorce then sung at the time by me, in the misery of that too! And it makes it harder that my now husband is also a John and I am not unhappy AT ALL! It is difficult for me to reach that part of myself…<\/p>\n

Eddi tells me that before her second homecoming, this time from London to Glasgow, Robert Burns appeared to her in a dream…<\/em><\/p>\n

He was standing on the other side of a bridge. And I could see him indicating to me to come across, \u2018Come on, you\u2019ll be fine. Come home.\u2019<\/p>\n

So she did. And not long after started work on her 2003 album The Songs of Robert Burns which garnered worldwide admiration. A notable omisson on the album was the famous Burn\u2019s verse \u2018A Man\u2019s A Man for A\u2019 That\u2019. I tell her it\u2019s brilliant to find it on this album.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, I\u2019ve always wanted to do it, but it\u2019s always a bit jingoistic when I heard it in the past and I couldn\u2019t get away from that [bursts into pretend bagpipe durdling] I couldn\u2019t figure out how to get it gentle.. and I just started playing C and F and the boys started playing alongside me and it turned into what it is…<\/p>\n

Leaving places and people is a theme that I notice on the new album. Eddi tells me that before she began work on Cavalier she had considered retiring. The second to last song is called Go Wisely. It begins, \u201cLook after yourself, go wisely,\u201d Advice she received from her relatives before she headed abroad as a young girl and now she wants to pass to her grown children.<\/em> \u201cThey will ignore it, just like I did, I suppose!\u201d She says, laughing.<\/em><\/p>\n

What kind of advice would you give your 18-year-old self?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rely on yourself. Don\u2019t worry about what other people think. Don\u2019t fret over dafties that break your heart. It means something better is coming… I\u2019m not sure if it would be useful, because part of the journey is the dark times. I certainly feel like I\u2019ve done the best with what I\u2019ve had.<\/p>\n

So It\u2019s about \u201cWhat You Do With What You Got? (A track from her first solo album, Mirmama.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

YES! I\u2019m in love with that song! I might even do it at Greenock. I never have a set list. I get off on just vibing the night and seeing what comes out. I\u2019ll be doing bits of Cavalier but I certainly won\u2019t rest it all on Cavalier.<\/p>\n

You never have a set list? Isn\u2019t that scary?<\/strong>
No, it\u2019s scarier the other way, because if you do the same thing the next night and the next night and the next night you are not involved in the music at all. What you are doing is presenting a marketing exercise as far as I\u2019m concerned. I know that I\u2019ll play bits of Cavalier, because I love the songs and they will come out. And if I love it, you will love it. If I relied on a set list, I am eliminating that whole process, that whole feeling, that instinctive beauty which has carried me nearly 60 years on the planet. I would not give that up for any sh!tty marketing ploy! [Hahahaha]<\/p>\n

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Come and see Eddi Reader live at Greenock\u2019s Beacon Arts Centre on Thu 25th April where she will be playing from her back catalogue and current album. <\/em>To find out more or book tickets go to<\/em> beaconartscentre.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

Images by Genevieve Stevenson<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eddi Reader shot to fame in the 80s with her band Fairground Attraction. She is the recipient of 3 BRIT awards and in 2003 she gained worldwide attention for her album The Songs of Robert Burns. Rona Simpson caught up with her to chat about her new album Cavalier, feminism and the \u2018instinctive beauty\u2019 of playing live…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[19,2,27],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nEddi Reader Interview - INSIGHT<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.advertizer.co.uk\/insight\/639\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eddi Reader Interview - INSIGHT\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Eddi Reader shot to fame in the 80s with her band Fairground Attraction. She is the recipient of 3 BRIT awards and in 2003 she gained worldwide attention for her album The Songs of Robert Burns. 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