THE ROCK SHOTS INTERVIEW: HOWARD JONES

THE ROCK SHOTS INTERVIEW: HOWARD JONES

Crossing That Line

Richard Hedges

Despite the fact that over two years have passed between the release of Howard Jones's hit album One To One and his newest, Cross That Line, the energetic keyboardist has had more than enough projects to keep himself busy, from performing a farewell show at London's Marquee Club to participating in a special show held in Russia last year. We managed to catch up with Howard in New York for the following interview before he embarked on his U.S. tour for 1989.

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What have you been up to for the last twoand-a-half years?

I've actually been working the whole time!

The first year of that was the tour, and since then I've been back at home working on this album.

It's taken me a long time. You did this huge show in Russia last year—how did you get involved with that?

That was really interesting. I'd done a concert in Japan called Japan Aid...it was sort of like Japan's version of Live Aid. Peter Gabriel asked me to do it. And one of the bands that was on there was a Russian band called Stas, and the leader of the band was a guy called Stas Namin. He's like the Mick Jagger of Russian rock 'n' roll. So he invited me over there to do the show, which was timed for the Reagan-Gorbachev summit.

Did you get a good reaction from the Russian audience?

It was really great—it was fantastic! I mean, they were singing along! I found then very similar to American audiences, actually. There is quite a similarity in the people, I think— warm, enthusiastic, vocal. Do you find it's easier for you to write songs now as opposed to when you started out?

It's a continuation. It's not something that just suddenly takes a right turn. Songwriting is basically what it is, and you just get better at it, I suppose. It actually gets harder, I think, because you become more aware of what things work and what things don't. In the early days, I just wrote them very spontaneously and very quickly, but now there's much more of the process of thinking about it and analyzing it a lot more, which may or may not be a good thing!

Does it ever become a problem for you when people try to pigeonhole you as strictly a synthpop artist?

I think synth-pop is a dead category. It's a problem for everyone, I think, being pigeonholed. I just do music the best way I can, and the stuff I like, I like.

Do you ever write material that you think might not fit into the framework of what you've become known for?

Actually, I've just been working on what I think is going to be a fairly long-term project, but it's three tracks that are completely instrumental, and they're more like sort of contemporary music...I really enjoy doing that, because, you know, you just let the imagination go wild. I want to finish it and put it out as an album over the next year or two.

You've been to America quite a few times now. What do you think of it?

I've spent a lot of time here. I don't live here, so I can sort of enjoy it. It's a great place to come. I really like American people on the whole. I like the way they're still open and enthusiastic about life. They haven't become cynical yet to the degree that we British have, and that is so refreshing, because I don't feel like a cynical person. I never have been. And I don't like cynical attitudes—I just find them to negative. Anybody can be cynical, but not everybody can be positive and at least try; In a nutshell, that's why I like America.

Is there anybody in the music business who you'd like to work with but haven't?

I'd like to do something with (producer) Mutt Lange. I'd like to write a song with him and have him produce a couple of tracks for me. I like everything he's done. I love that Def Leppard album—in terms of weight and the way it's put together, it's brilliant.

I hate the lyrics, but I love the music and the production.

Speaking of lyrics, you've always said that the words of your songs are extremely important to you...

The lyrics will always have some very thought-provoking thing in there. It's great in America, because people do listen to lyrics very much—much more than they do in Britain or Europe. Words are so powerfuL.if you get it right, if you get a phrase right, it sounds great and it really goes with the music well and it gets over a whole concept with just one phrase. You can sum up a feeling or a situation that everyone's been in with a few words, and it's great when you can get it.

Now that you're playing arenas in America, do you ever miss your club days?

I've thought about doing a solo piano tour. Maybe I should do it this year! Cause I love doing that—just a small thing, you know two thousand, maybe three thousand seater, just have the piano and me and two hours of me playing my songs in the totally acoustic form. I think I'd really enjoy that, 'cause you could talk to the audience. I'd quite like to do that sometime. All the songs take on a new life when you do them like that.

Is it hard to be original with pop music these days?

Well, you can't be that adventurous with pop music because the definition of it is that it's basically very simple, but you can bring no end of sophistication to that. I mean there's no limit to how sophisticated one can be within that format, and that's why I think it's very exciting.