Chris de Burgh
Chris de Burgh has enjoyed a career that has lasted almost forty years and yet his latest album Home sees him cover new ground - the acoustic record.
I caught up with him to chat about his new album, choosing the songs for the record and what lies ahead.
- You have just released your new album Home so what can we expect from the record this time around?
I have made something like twenty of twenty two studio albums of original material in the past and I felt that the time was right to look at some obscure songs from the past.
As a song-writer I have always written with one instrument - either guitar or piano - because I believe that if a song is strong enough to be performed completely stripped down then it is a good one to go on and record.
Earlier this year I have been very busy doing concerts with my band in Canada, Beirut, Istanbul, Russia; I have just finished completed a twenty date tour around Europe and I was in Sardinia last weekend doing another show.
In April we were asked to go to Zermatt to do an unplugged acoustic set as part of their festival they have: I have done it once before solo but this time it was with the band. It is a beautiful part of the world and we were in this tent with a couple thousand and it was recorded for Swiss TV.
We got a couple of days rehearsal in and I liked the format and enjoyed doing an acoustic set with the band and we were going to record it as a live album but then I thought ‘let’s move this one step forward and look at other songs from my past and not just the big ones’.
So the acoustic album Home it really embodies songs that have really surprised me in being able to stand the test of time and also have words that still mean something today. I am very pleased with the result.
- Well you have slightly touched on my next question really this is your first ever acoustic record so why did you decide to make an album like this now?
I just felt that the time was right. I am very aware that time moves on and in the last four years I have made four records and I have another one planned for next year - I have already written eleven new songs for that one.
Songs don’t just suddenly arrive like a taxi you have to work on them and you have to put a lot of time and energy and self discipline into creating that kind of thing.
An acoustic album is so natural to me and although I do big arenas around the world the intimacy of an acoustic album is a very nice change.
I will be played the Royal Albert Hall next year as well as the NIA in Birmingham and those places are great fun to do but the intimacy of a solo acoustic album with just voice and keyboard and stuff is a very attractive way for me to do a record.
- The album was released on Monday (8th October) so how have you found the response to the record?
Very strong, the reaction has been very good. I don’t expect to have a number one album at all because I am the kind of artist who sells constantly every single week.
- You strip back fourteen songs from you 38 year career so how did you find the process of stripping everything away? And what was it like returning to these songs?
It was fascinating. My criteria was simple: one, I wanted to choose songs that hadn’t been recorded originally in an acoustic way. Two, that they were not the well know ones. And three, they had to really mean something so they had to have nice lyrics and a good melody.
The choice started from around a hundred songs and I had to whittle them away (laughs). Back in the days when these records were made for me the production values of those times are a little dated now - that is the way that you mad records in the seventies and eighties.
I have always had a long term view on records as I want them to be books and not magazines and newspapers that you discard very quickly.
There is a track called Love & Time and that was written during the economic boom where I live and the dinner table talk was about the value of your property and how it would double over night.
I remember talking to an architect and he said ‘I am making so much money I don’t know what to do’ - I am in a business where you don’t have an idea from one end of the year to the next how what you are going to earn and it is not like a salary that you can guarantee.
And I remember thinking ‘this is not going to last, this feels uncomfortable’ - people would put values on my house that would make my eyes pop out.
So this song is about a woman who has a husband who is constantly out doing business and he rings her night after night ‘saying I am working late again tonight but gosh we are going to have a good life’. He takes her out for dinner to celebrate and he gets a call and says ‘sorry I have to go, there is another big deal that I am working on.
And so he leaves her alone in a busy restaurant. And this is when she starts thinking ‘this is just not worth it. I don’t want his money I want love and affection. I want times and dreams and I want to be looked after.’
- As you say these tracks aren't necessarily your biggest hits so how did you go about choosing what made the record?
The fact that they are not the biggest hits was a huge part of it as I didn’t want to make a greatest hits record; if this one does well perhaps we will put another one out in a couple of years called Home Again (laughs) and put the famous ones on.
It was just simply that I liked the tunes. There is one at the end of the record called Goodnight which I recorded in 1974, a long time ago, and I wanted to do it identically; so we had the same piano arrangement and the same strings coming in but my voice is utterly different - I sang like a little boy back then.
But after doing so much touring and three and a half thousand shows around the world and my voice has just improved dramatically and changed but it is still in good shape which is why I enjoy doing what I do.
- Chris Porter is on hand to produce the record alongside yourself so what were you looking for in your producer this time around?
Well he and I have a very good working relationship as we have made a few records together. It is a very easy going relationship and we are not looking to push the boundaries of music and all but we want to make records that my fans around the world will enjoy.
That particular album was recorded in my home in Ireland in a big room where my kids have table tennis and pool and so on. The band rehearsed there prior to a big tour that we did and loved it so we brought in a mobile truck and recorded.
There is a track called Waiting For The Hurricane and that was recorded literally during a hurricane that had come over from the West Indies and he wind was howling. It was a charming way to make a record.
- I was reading that you chose to record at home so how did that slightly more intimate surroundings influence the music?
It made everyone very relaxed. I have worked a lot in studios in London and there is a lovely energy that you get from that but this record benefited hugely from being recorded without having to look at the clock - that was the idea.
But we recorded really fast because it was all live. I would pitch up at around 11am and then band would show up we would have a cup of coffee and kick in.
Within six days we had recorded sixteen tracks - there are two extra tracks out there somewhere. It was very easy going and relaxed.
- You have enjoyed a career that has spanned nearly forty years so what is the secret to your longevity? And what has kept you in the business for so long?
Well partly because I want to. So many people say to me ‘you must have made so much money why are you doing this?’ But that is not relevant it is the fact that we are put on the planet to do something with out time and we don’t have a lot of time. So I look at the sands of time and I think ‘I have got to do something with the time’.
My voice is still in good shape, I am healthy and I very much enjoy what I do - but that is all very because if you don’t have the support of the fans then you can’t go out. But I have just done twenty solo shows around Europe and they were all sold out and next year we start the big show in the arenas.
So it is energy and commitment as well as having a good team around you. But also have wonderful fans out there as well as great fans who are coming through from all ages; we get little kids up to people of may age and beyond.
- And how have you seen the industry change during the time that you have been working in it? And how does the industry now compare to when you were just starting out?
It is completely different. I know that there is a lot of talk about illegal downloads and piracy and I think that the record companies are blaming the wrong people for the demise of the music industry.
It is like a big beautiful tree and ivy has been growing up it and strangling it and forcing it to its knees - the tree will come down or be reborn in a different way.
When I started we were given long contracts so you were given a two album deal and even if it didn’t do very well you were supported.
But these people think that fame is the key and the all want to be famous - they want to be on X-Factor for example - there is talent sill out there but unless record companies put money into artists long term then the idea of a long term career is just unobtainable.
I personally believe, and a lot of people would agree with me, that the quality of song-writing has diminished.
The really durable songs were written by Lennon and McCartney and Paul Simon and so on and they have stood the test of time but I don’t think that new young song-writers today have the heroes that I did - I learnt my craft listening to those kinds of artists.
It is just a changed world to be honest and it is quite right that it should be changed as every generation needs to have its own heroes but I don’t feel that I am in the same industry.
- You have mentioned that you have been writing new material for an album next year so can you give us any little hints as to what we can expect from that?
So far it is ten or eleven news songs… the thing is I write songs about different topics from spacemen come travelling to ladies in red to snow is falling. It is a wide range of interests and the same thing will have happened on this album as well.
There is a song called The Bridge while is about a bridge in Cologne in Germany where people put locks on the bridge for enduring love - there are thousands and thousands on this railway bridge. They then throw the keys in the river or keep the keys as a celebration of their love.
And the song is about a couple that put a lock on the bridge and what happens to them next. So it is a wide variety of information and ideas.
- Finally what is next for you?
Good question (laughs). It has been an extraordinary busy year and I will be in Germany tomorrow to do a TV show on Saturday night.
Then I am going to the Maldives at the end of the month to do two solo concerts on the beach and I will be taking my family for a few days rest and relaxation.
In November I have quite a few shows with my band and December usually involves quite a lot of television. Then I might take breath over Christmas and start recording this new album in February.
Chris de Burgh’s album Home is out now
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw