Nice to meet Huw!
For those of you who regularly visit the official Judie Tzuke Web Site, you may have already read the following interview. The interview was conducted by Huw Knight and was posted on the official site, and sent to me for inclusion on this site, in mid June.
I don't think too much has been given away in this interview, Judie is obviously keeping her cards close to her chest!
Hopefully another interview will be held in the near future where we might find out a bit more about the release dates for the Rocket albums, any proposed new albums, the U.S. Deal, the proposed single release, the Bailey recordings, the history of the universe...
Huw Knight: Belated Happy Birthday....did you have a good day?
Judie Tzuke: It was strange, cos I'd been away on holiday as you know, and I got back the day before, really early. We didn't really celebrate it, but it was great to get all those messages on the message board and by email too, so "Thank You" everyone for that, it was really nice...
Huw: The last time we did something like this was just before your birthday in'98, when you were in the throws of recording Secret Agent and were also preparing for the gig in Brighton on your birthday. Since then, the album's come out, you've done a tour, and the tour's been over for 2 months...what sort of response have you got from it all?
Judie: The response has been amazing, the gigs went well, the feedback has been good, the albums done well too. I feel in a kind of lull now the tours over. I don't really feel as though I'm stopping with it, whilst we're not touring at the moment, I don't feel as though we're finishing up with the album, there's more to do.
Huw: What's going on at the moment?
Judie: Well, we've got this American deal in the offing, we have a guy working on things over there, and what he's saying is what we've been waiting for a long time, which is trying to get us on an American tour, such as the Lilith Fair, and promoting the album in America, which is what I'd really like to do, but whether or not it happens is another thing.
Huw: How do you feel about the Rocket stuff coming back into the nest, as it were?
Judie: Well we've been going for it for such a long time, and when I spoke to Elton it was like.." Of course you can have it back!"...it was a bit strange when it happened, almost like an anti climax, 'cos we'd been trying for so long that it was so easy when it happened, it was great really!
Huw: Could you believe that it'd actually happened?
Judie: Well yeah, cos when I spoke to him it just seemed like the most sensible thing really, but then who'd have known six months ago that all this was going to fall into place. I did believe actually that if Elton knew what had been going on he'd give them back, but I didn't know how to get to him. I didn't want to write him a personal letter to do with business, which is what it would have been.
It was ironic that he wanted a copy of Secret Agent, which we'd already sent to him but for some reason it didn't get to him, so he got his assistant to ring up for another copy, and we'd just written him a letter, so we just put it in with the CD and set it off...a series of happy coincidences!
Huw: As a fan base we're all really happy for you that this has happened, and can't wait to get hold of the rocket stuff again.
Judie: (laughs)...Yeah, but we've still got to find the masters, I'm sure that we will, even if we can only find the 24 track, and have to remix Phoenix, which may not be such a bad thing anyway.
Huw: You prefer the foreign cover do you?
Judie: I actually don't like either of them, (laughs) so there you go.
Huw: What would you have as the front cover then?
Judie: I don't know....I think I'd really like the one that we had done originally, which was painted by an artist friend of ours called Tudor Humphries, although it doesn't look quite right, as it was done before I actually knew him. He did a painting of me that he took from a photograph, but he incorporated his wife's shoulders, she has very different shoulders to me, and the picture looks different to how I looked 'cos he'd never met me! It'd be something different, but it'd tie in with what we originally wanted.
Huw: You mentioned that you weren't touring at the moment, is there anything lined up?
Judie: There's loads of stuff in the air, there's talk of us doing something acoustically, and if the American thing comes off I don't know whether they'd want me on my own or whether we could take the band, everything's a bit indefinite at the moment. It's not cast in stone or anything.
I'm writing stuff as well at the moment, I did two songs last week that I really like, one with Richard and one with Dave.
Huw: So the creative juices are flowing again then?
Judie: Yeah, they are now, had a bit of a sticky beginning, where I went off to write with people and nothing came out, so I was a bit worried, but it's OK now.
Huw: Are we in the same sort of vein as Secret Agent?
Judie: Who knows Huw. I never know how things are going to turn out, probably similar.
Huw: So when you write then, how does it all happen. Do you start with an idea, a lyric, a tune in your head or what?
Judie: When I write with Dave particularly, we start from scratch, and he'll play a riff that he might have had in his head, or maybe not, and we just mess about until the chords sound right, then we'll but a drum track on it to make it sound "proper", and then just leave it.
Huw: How long does it take?
Judie: Usually about 2 or 3 hours. The bones usually happen immediately, it either happens or it doesn't, then it's a bit like a jigsaw really, putting the rest of the pieces into place.
Huw: which is vastly different to how it used to be isn't it?
Judie: Yeah it's much better now, much easier now.
Huw: What brought about the change?
Judie: It all started with Wonderland when I was writing with Bob (Noble). We made a concerted decision to experiment and write a song a day. We wrote 23 songs in 25 days, and used most of them. Since then, I won't sit around and ponder about the words, I don't think that those are as good, the best ones are those that just come from nowhere.
It can be difficult at times, because if the lyrics won't come sometimes the melody won't either.
Huw: Talking of the flow of songs for Wonderland, there's been a lot of conjecture about how much unreleased stuff there is of yours.
Judie: I have got some, and most of it we'll use in some way or other. There were 2 songs from Agent that didn't get done in the end...not because we didn't like them, but because we had so many to choose from. I wrote them with Oskar (the engineer). We did them on Oskars backing tracks, which were very metallic, sort of older Björk type stuff, but we never got round to transferring them across to the normal band set up, but I want to because I still like them. One of them is called "Lion" which was written about the viking sign that we use....about this imaginary thing that is suppose to make us stronger.
Huw: Does that work for you still?
Judie: Who knows whether anything works....I've got lucky charms everywhere...Brian May's lucky sixpence.
Huw: I was reading about how his guitar went missing from your place once, a long time ago.
Judie: Oh really?
Huw: Did it ever turn up?
Judie: It never went missing...it was a publicity stunt. I was asked if they could do that, and I said "absolutely not", and then I went away and they did it! There was a very dodgy publicist who made up the story, and asked me specifically if he could use it, and still used it when I said no! It was a horrible time 'cos it was when Brian's album was coming out, and I couldn't get in touch to explain what'd happened. I felt very responsible and was very upset, but Brian was fine about it, thankfully. It was on Capital Radio and everything. I don't believe in the theory that all publicity is good publicity though.
Huw: So what publicity stunts are we likely to see from you then? (laughs)
Judie: None...I want to have more success obviously, but I'm not ambitious to be in the public eye all the time, I just want to make enough to keep doing what I'm doing...that's all.
Huw: Last time we spoke you said that Agent might be the last album from you.
Judie: Well, now we've got the Rocket stuff back, and hopefully sales from those will help fund the next album, so no, Agent probably won't be the last one now.
Huw: Has Agent sold well ?
Judie: Really well, we're quite happy with it, though we hope it sells some more too!
Huw: Are the Jazzy B remixes going to see the light of day ?
Judie: I've actually got some, but I don't know whether I'm allowed to do anything with them or not, because they're his AND mine. It did get some radio play, but it was never released....maybe we could give it away as a competition prize or something at a later date, I've got about six copies somewhere.
Huw: What sort of stuff are you listening to at the moment?
Judie: All sorts of stuff...Fat Boy Slim, Maxwell, which I listen to in the car a lot.
Huw: Still got the Beetle?
Judie: Yeah.. in fact, we shot a video with it today....Dave's got this drum and bass band that he's working with called Retrograde, that have their first single due out soon, so we did the video for it, so they borrowed the Beetle for the vid, and Bailey's in the video...hopefully I'm NOT in it.
Huw: Last question Jude, what else can we do as a fan base to keep the awareness ticking over?
Judie: Just what you're already doing. And I want people to know that I DO appreciate everything that's happening...if I don't reply to people it's not because I don't want to, it's because, well, with the children, and writing and everything else...you know what it's like...and I can't type very well either.
Huw: Thanks for your time...it's been great. Bye.
Judie: Bye...see you soon.
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