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  Peter Murphy Tames Audiences with
Intimate "Just For Love" Tour
Candid conversation reveals lighter side of
Goth-rock's Dark Prince
By Steve Stav
Searingly
powerful and eerily seductive, Peter Murphy's hypnotic voice has
been on public display for twenty years now.
While it would have been easy to become a
caricature of his famous "persona noir"
more than a decade ago, Murphy continued to musically
distance himself from his beginnings as Bauhaus'
frontman; albums such as Love Hysteria (1988),
Deep (1990), and, more recently, Cascade
(1995) blended a certain languid exoticism with
the erotic intensity he developed early on in his
career.
On the heels of
a wildly successful Bauhaus reunion jaunt and a
mesmerizing solo "greatest hits" tour,
the Dark Prince is back - and still in a
retrospective mood; Murphy's new venture - a
"stripped-down" performance with two
accompanists - is a dive into the black,
rarely-tapped well of his early solo material,
with the Gothic icon collecting sonic bits from
more recent years on his way back to the surface.
Two weeks into
the tour, on 11/10, the surprisingly
self-effacing and expectedly eloquent singer
candidly discussed this bold new step, the
inspiration for it, and the nightly encounters
with his fans...and their expectations of him.
Pando:
I understand that this tour is quite a departure
from past performances. Was the popularity of
your acoustic encores part of the motivation for
a stripped-down show?
Murphy:
Yes, it was. It was the first time, during the
last tour, that I really played any of my songs
in a very stripped-down version. The songs had a
very different quality to them; I wanted to go on
a low-profile tour, and "re-approach"
my back catalogue, as it is, with that approach.
Murphy:
I'm previewing some new material that I've been
working on this year, and particularly the songs
that I've been writing with Mercan Dede, he's a
Turkish musician who works in Montreal. It's
almost like I've been exploring (while) working
with him because, for one thing, he has a great
knowledge of traditional Turkish music, but on
the other hand, he's like a...DJ. There's a very
interesting cross-breed between an
ethnic-organic-acoustic approach with a lot of
electronica effects, which is something that I've
incorporated into my work in the past...though
not on such an overt, "trancy" level, I
suppose.
So, it's really
a natural continuation, if you like, on the kind
of atmospheres and textures that I've worked with
in the past, which have tried to blend that
"Turkish" atmosphere with a
technological approach. Those two songs
("Just For Love," "No Home Without
It's Sire") are basically songs that we
threw together during a three-day writing
session, and they worked out so well, that I
wanted to put them out now. They're in an early,
sketchy form now, and have fuller arrangements.
Most of the other material (on the tour) is
very...naked. This is almost like a busking
tour...I've got Peter DiStefano, who was the
guitarist on the last tour, and an extraordinary
violin player, Hugh Marsh. I'm really adding
textures - replacing atmospheres, the soundscapes
that occur in the original songs, stripping them
to their essential forms. It's not exactly
"unplugged," but I wanted to prove to
the audience, and to myself, that without the
artifice and decoration around a concert, that it
can work and be just as powerful without them.
Pando:
I felt that those encores (during the Wild
Birds tour) were the most intense aspect of
the show.
Murphy:
I was feeling that, also. It was kind of like
meeting the audience "face-on"...it was
very, very strong, in that sense. I'm glad you
saw that, too. So this is really trying to extend
that "space"... the only risk, of
course, was could I make it work over an hour an
a half? That was a challenge...a month ago, we
started rehearsing. We rehearsed for ten days,
just the three of us getting together, making it
work and exploring. I probably had about thirty
songs that I possibly was going to play, and some
of them I just wasn't comfortable playing without
fuller arrangements. The ones that I've distilled
out of all that happen to be songs that I've
rarely played, or played early on in my solo
career - so there a real freshness to the show,
and it's a...contemplative one, as well.
Pando:
So we're going to hear a real violin play
"Cuts You Up."
Murphy:
Yeah, Hugh is a virtuoso, basically. I would say
he's like the Michael Brooke of the violin, in
that he's an experimentalist - he likes to treat
the violin, process it. He can switch from
traditional violin to any sound he wants. As does
Peter DiStefano, I mean he's not only playing
guitar, but he's sometimes playing piano along
with the guitar. He's creating all of these
interesting, undulating sort of sounds. We're all
experimenting quite a bit. And then, of course,
you've just got me in the middle of it...the
songs with no theatrical trappings, if you will.
So, I'm not really able to hide anywhere
(laughs). It has a real "precipice"
feeling to it - it could fall apart, or it could
be really wonderful. There's that danger to
it...which I think the audience really feels,
too. I've tried to communicate the nature of the
performance to the audience before the show -
through the press. But obviously people are going
to come and kind of expect more of a "rock
show," if you like. It's interesting to see
the audience not leave, actually (laughs).
Pando:
It seems that your voice will be focused upon
more than ever. Did you grow up singing, or is
that something you had to be coaxed into?
Murphy:
Singing was like a therapy for me, and I guess
it's still a therapy. As a child, I would sing
all of the time, and search out harmonies,
listening to my favorite records. Of course, the
family was a great singing family. My father
would sing - being an Irishman - and as the
youngest of seven children, I had a lot of
brothers and sisters who would play everything
from Doris Day to Elvis, the Beatles, Rolling
Stones, the whole British explosion of the
Sixties. I was surrounded by music...I remember
singing at school, on the way to school, at home,
everywhere.
And, of course,
when we're playing live....the other point you
brought up. For years, people have told me I
should do very "minimal" music, with
more voice arrangements, because there's always
been a great comment on the quality of my
voice...which I take as a great complement.
Definitely, this tour has really been giving me a
platform, an opportunity for the audience to hear
what I sound like (laughs) over and above the
arrangements. It's like a showcase - either way -
as to whether I can really pull it off, it's like
I'm proving - either way - whether I'm a singer
or not. There is a lot of texture to my voice, I
do play around with range, tones and harmony alot
- perhaps people get this subliminally by
listening to the albums, but here you'll be
actually hearing the real thing.
Pando:
I saw Bryan Ferry attempt a similar feat very
successfully earlier this year, with the vocals
way out in front...
Murphy:
Was that with the album he just put out?
Pando:
Yeah, the jazz album (As Time Goes By).
Murphy:
I saw him do that on the Jools Holland show, he
was brilliant. I also saw him play at the
Istanbul Jazz Festival (last July), where I also
played. I think it worked very well, he had full
arrangements - violins, horns, percussion. I was
really happy for him...there was something very
genuine about it...he was doing it because he
wanted to do it.
Pando:
Was Ryuichi Sakamoto's perfomance at that
festival an inspiration for this
"minimalist" tour?
Murphy:
It's very interesting that you've brought up
Sakamoto. I didn't know what to expect...it was
kind of a jazz/electronica/modern
experimentalist/avant-garde show, with an ethnic
aspect to it, which was quite amazing. Sakamoto
is very much an intellectual, but it didn't come
across as "dry" at all. His music has
that very Japanese inner quality, that
"stillness" that works very well. I
could never compare myself to someone like
Sakamoto, because basically I'm a working-class
post-punk...my stuff's "beautifully
inept," if you like, my work is a sort of
reflex. I really loved that show, and I wanted to
meet him afterwards, but I'm too shy to go and
say hello (laughs). Whether he had an influence
on me or not, I don't know...it proved to me this
sort of thing can work. Also, working with my
wife, she's a choreographer - she's the artistic
director of a modern dance company in Turkey. I'm
involved in a lot of her work - and have been for
years - and having this theater to come and
watch, be a spectator of, there's a lot of great
inspiration I get from watching her company
perform.
Pando:
You have a trademarked method of commanding an
audience, but those who saw you perform last year
had an occasional glimpse of your lighter side -
has your attitude towards performing changed?
Murphy:
It changes according to the moment, in a sense.
I'm definitely attempting to strip away the
conscious artifice of the theatrical event...so
my approach has been to consciously walk out
alone, and put myself on the line without the
histrionic and vital power of a band. It's
something I'm walking through now, and feeling
out; it's like that emptiness forces me to pull
something out, without having to resort to the
pure use of...charismatic power, if you like.
(Laughing) So, it's kind of very funny process,
it's a very psycho-dramatic process, it's kind of
like "I must be mad to do this," but at
the same time, it's clearing my head. So my
approach changes according to the nature of the
show that I'm putting on, because there's a big
part of me that is an actor, and I get into the
role. Although, it's an unspoken, undefined sort
of a role, it's kind of all about reacting to an
audience, and the terror and the madness and
the...audacity of walking onto a stage and
assuming that people are going to listen to you.
Pando:
You're almost like a lion tamer onstage. I
remember a woman screaming, propositioning you to
father her children during a "quiet
moment" - it was in Sacramento, on the Holy
Smoke tour. You stopped the band, and told
her to shut up...
Murphy:
(chuckles) There is that definite interaction
with an audience. There is a lot of projected
expectation of me. In Bauhaus, I was a lion
tamer, in a sense. I mean, we were playing to
audiences in England in the early days, where it
was a riot, basically. We were never
punk-rockers, and we were dealing with an
audience that was sort of pushing us to be
violent and to be anarchic, and we weren't
exactly that; we were like a sort of bizarre
cabaret, which was like a mix of glam-rock
casualties and art-rock, art-experimental
rockers, more akin to what Bjork is basically
about nowadays, or Tricky, whatever. And we were
confronted by a complete, raging spitting
machine; I'd walk off literally dripping with
slime from the spit of the audience, which was
their way of complementing me (chuckles)...and we
weren't going to take that.
So I developed
this sort of...it's interesting for you to say
that, "lion tamer," a tamer of wild
animals (laughs). There was that confrontational
aspect...when I'm up there, I'm also baring
myself completely, and I can feel the projected
expectations from some of the audience - not all
of them - that have been influenced by what I've
done in the past. So, I'm sort of playing with it
but rejecting it, resisting it, trying to find my
own space...part of that is actually talking to
the audience and reacting. You know, I may be on
the stage, but I'm with you in that hall and I'm
part of the collective there.
Pando:
I've pulled two songs out of the hat. How were
"A Strange Kind of Love" and
"Canvas Beauty" written, what inspired
them?
Murphy:
"Canvas Beauty" isn't being
played...it's the first song I wrote as a solo
artist, actually. It almost has no music to it,
there's just two chords that jangle in this
ambient sort of space, over which I wrote a song
on a train, I was on my way to record with Howard
Hughes, who was to become my cohort on that first
album, Should The World Fail To Fall Apart.
It was a continuation of the theme, the character
portrayed in The Picture of Dorian Gray,
by Oscar Wilde, and the relationship he has with
the actress, Sybil Vane... lyrically, it's a love
song about the necessity for a partner in your
life to enable you to complete yourself.
Pando:
And "A Strange Kind of Love?"
Murphy:
That song's got a quality to it that's very
alluring and very moving - it's a classic ballad,
in a sense. It really relies a lot on...feeling
and "state" if you like, the state of
emotion in the performance of the song. "A
Strange Kind of Love" is (about) the kind of
awe that's felt in the safety and the comfort
zone of your intimate moment with whomever -
whether it's your lover, your best
friend...there's a moment where you feel
completely in awe and safe and unified with
yourself and that other person...it's almost like
the both of you don't exist, there's only that
one thing, this sort of "space".
Pando:
Your hard-core fans have been clamoring for The
Grid for years. What has prevented it from
being shown until now, and could you tell me
something about the film itself?
Murphy:
I never felt it had the quality to it, that it
was ready for release; but after Bauhaus'
resurrection tour, there's been so much interest
in "clearing out" the memorabilia of
those days. It's a curious piece of memorabilia
for those who have followed my work since then;
it isn't a Bauhaus project, it's just a film that
I made with my then-girlfriend, Joanna Woodward,
the director. It was a handmade thing, made in
the spirit of that whole period, where almost
everyone was making art, some piece of creativity
with no money, no technology. It has a sort of
oblique connection with the kind of themes that
I've been writing about in my work - and I guess
Bauhaus' work as well - it also shows me in that
very early stage...it was done within six months
of Bauhaus' formation. It's quite an oddball,
left-of-field, out-there film, really. Some
people might hate it, but there will be people
that will really get off on it, I think.
Pando:
So you have a movie as an opening act...
Murphy:
Well, it's only twenty minutes long...this show
couldn't have an opening act, it's so
naked...unless I had just one person doing a
magic act or something. I almost thought of
having a magician go up there...
Pando:
Or you could have a real lion tamer up there,
getting the crowd under control before you go
on...
Murphy:
(Laughing) A lion tamer? Yes...
END
Peter Murphy Live
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