HE PUTS A SPELL ON YOU

Liking the man so much is a problem. Liking him means I can?t make snide remarks. Without snide remarks I don?t have a style. Trouble is, he?s a sweetheart and I want to take him home. Trouble is, he?s an utterly committed artist and I admire that hugely. Trouble is, I came off the phone feeling like I?d been talking to an old friend.
Now I know how Van feels.
He was in his London recording studio when he took my call. The voice was warm, enthusiastic: ?I have a huge affection for Hot Press, very warm feelings. And they really earned my admiration when they honoured Belfast by coming up for the Hot Press/Heineken Awards.? (He?d won Music Personality Of The Year and Best Male Artist.)
Had he seen the tit-for-tat Open Letters to Brian Kennedy in the Hot Press letters page? Invitations to have sticky buns in Galway? Suggestions to put the message in the box, put the box into the car and drive the car off a cliff?
Huge chuckle at this. ?No, I haven?t ? I can?t always get it when I?m on tour. I?d love to see them, though.?
I tell him I?ve been jogging to Life, Love And Happiness over the summer. He seems genuinely chuffed at this. ?I?m a jogger myself, you know.? Vegetarian? ?I was for seven or eight years. I still don?t eat dairy ? bad for the voice.? Very ambitious, very driven, right? The answer comes fast and firm: ?Yes. Oh yes.?
Any icons? ?Tony Bennett. Since I was a kid. We didn?t have much ? growing up in Falls Road but some music got in through the cracks. I?m so grateful for that. We got an old radiogram and I used to listen to his ?Candy Kisses? ? over and over. He became a kind of role model for me. I met him later at the Jazz Cafe in London ? there he was, in his seventies, still performing. Like that?s what he?s on earth for, and he?s doing it. I identify with that.?
So that?s the agenda? To be still singing at 70?
?Well, if I keep off the chocolate and keep up the jogging, I might go better than that and make it to 90.? He?s serious. ?Yes, first and foremost I see myself as a performer. I was surprise guest the other night at The Point for Gael Force ? I began to sing from behind the door at the back, and then I walked slowly down through the audience singing ?Carrickfergus?. And slowly, it took 15 to 20 seconds, the audience realised who I was. That was magic.?
Pure theatre? ?Absolutely.?
He must love something like PopMart then? ?I was there. It was terrific. I admire U2 greatly. They?re always pushing the boundaries back and they put on a tremendous live show.?
So what of writing, producing? How important is it for him to be a jack-of-all-trades?
?For me, playing live is what it?s all about. I began as a live performer. I had no concept of writing at the start. I love recording. It?s a fascinating process and an emotional snapshot of the moment. But live, anything can happen. I can fall on my arse. Or be heckled. It has a wonderful life of its own. It?s communication and that?s what music is all about. Like me and the band ? we have great team spirit ? before we go on stage we do the rocket ship thing: holding long notes and chords, getting louder and louder until we explode in a burst of energy! Then we go right on stage.? Pretty orgasmic? ?Exactly.?
So no hang-ups about artistic freedom? ?No. I?m flexible. It?s all about collaboration. That?s why I?m up for receiving songs from other people.? Does he have control over details, such as the cover-design of his albums? ?Sure, but we work as a team. I?ll tell you how we do it: last time we all sat down together and passed around a bunch of pictures. And you know? We all chose the same one.? This matters to him: seeing eye-to-eye with his team gives him a special buzz.
I quote Van on image and publicity: ?I just make music?.
?Well, Van has the stature do what he likes, but for someone like me, if I don?t do with the publicity machine, people will say ?Brian Kennedy? Who?s he??! And so far it?s been OK, not too intrusive.? And has he any sense of unease about presenting an image? ?I just try to be myself.?
But this is what we don?t believe about Brian Kennedy. There is something of the wounded, the bereft, about the image or the man. A voice to charm angels, as Q mag said, but the personal magnetism comes from some murky depths as yet unplumbed. Hence, I think, the fascination about his sexuality: we all want someone to get plumbing and tell us what?s down there.
Does he have a strong religious sense? There?s a faint but audible intake of breath. The answer comes slowly and carefully. ?I?d consider myself more an emotional person. Because of early experiences words like ?religious? reverberate and are coloured with political meanings and painful memories, and I react against them. I express my spirit through my music. It?s a matter of having to re-invent religion. Or re-interpret. I try to have good thoughts. I think that matters. Often I send a wish out to a person, whether living or dead. Make contact. I suppose that is prayer.?
Contact, collaboration, communication. That is definitely the message in the box. Maybe he should negotiate at Stormont. But why doesn?t he write more overtly about his Northern experience? Is it not an inevitable part of his creative make-up?
?Of course. And in a song like ?Anniversary? it emerges in a clandestine way. Or in ?He Talks Like Traffic? it comes out. But in the end no-one can dictate what you write about. Not even yourself. Often the whole creative process seems out of your conscious control. When I work with my co-writers like Calum (McColl) we may start from a two-chord thing or melody and we go with it, without any clear idea of what will emerge. It?s a process of gradually finding out what the song is about. I love the co-writing experience: it?s an intimate public process, a trusting thing.?
Is there a significant other in his life? There is. It?s his music. As he talks, a picture emerges quite the converse of either the camp performer or the brooding sensitive male of his commercial image. There is focus and energy here, conserved and controlled. The relationship with his collaborators ? band, co-writers, fellow-artists, fans ? is all-fulfilling. The man is having a love affair with his own voice. ?My voice is the biggest part of me.?
Some instinct makes me blurt out: do you have a problem with your weight? A startled chuckle. ?Well, yes. When I get too driven my weight drops. This is the lightest I?ve ever been, even when I was a teenager. I burn myself out. I get very upset if I don?t do something every day to do with music. It?s like jogging: you get agitated if you don?t do it. I like to feel that intensity but I can go too far.? But his people make sure he takes care of himself, don?t they? Suddenly I really care. I?ll be telling him to be sure to wear his thermal vest next. ?Yes, when they see me going down that mental road they say ?Hey, cool it!? Then I go for a jog. Or to a sauna. That?s great. Or sometimes I take three or four days off, go down to a cottage in Cornwall. Or to Donegal or Galway. I?d love to go to Arran ? or anywhere I?d be forced to use my Gaelic.?
But I?m still back in the sauna with him. I try to come swiftly up on his blind side. Does he do any specifically gay things like buying Gay Times or Attitude? Yes, he buys Attitude. How about gay clubs? Would we be likely to see him in the gay disco in Cork? A laugh and he fields this one nicely: ?I?ll go anywhere where there?s good music. I love to dance. The gay clubs used to have good music but now it?s all techno stuff.? Wow, a man after my own heart? An Erasure fan possibly?
I have to ask this: am I raving or did I read somewhere that he went to a girls? school? ?That?s true! But only to do my A levels, which the boys? school didn?t do. I was already 17.? So it wasn?t a formative experience? ?No, I was pretty well formed by then.? Must have given the girls a thrill? ?Yes, I sat at the back of the class in my dyed hair, earrings and pony-tail. The nuns objected to my gear. At 17, you think you have all the answers: I said ?Sister, isn?t that very sexist? All the girls are wearing pony-tails?. The subject was dropped. Then I dropped out myself after seven months and cast myself adrift on the music world. Looking back, I think I did the right thing.?
So he?s into discipline? ?Yes. In a big way. I won?t be having that sticky bun if I go to Galway ? just the cuppa ? that?d be nice!?
When he?s not in training, though, is he into sticky buns?
?Sure, but I?m always in training, if I?m in for the long haul I?m ready to pay the price.?
Brian Kennedy, a man willing to pay the price. Whatever that may be.
True to his word, at his pre-album tour gig at City Hall Cork Kennedy was fighting fit. The jogging is paying off. The concert was stunning in terms of sheer energy and consummate performance skills. He hit his extremely heterogenous audience (an Iron Maiden fan, a Belfast man who had come ?to support a neighbour?s child?, a pregnant female devotee, a panting male devotee, two young punk sound-recording students, etc.) with a wave of energy right from the start and never really let up.
Before the gig, your hotfoot Hot Press journalist had complained to him that the rows of plastic seating were likely to kill the traditional gig spirit stone dead (?Make up your mind, kid: are you Elvis or the wee Daniel??) so he promised to invite us to dance and, halfway through, did: ?You?re not going to stay in your seats, are you?? After that the whole hall stayed standing even through the slow numbers. Banter was the mode throughout: ?I?m not one of those singers who has a bee in their bonnet about writing, producing, painting the studio walls, making the beds . . . where did that come from?? ?Your brain,? replied one of the band. To quote Hamlet, if I may: ?Methinks the lady doth protest too much.?
He introduced three of the reported twenty new songs; at least one ? ?Flightless?, which builds into a simmering wall of sound ? I?d pay money to hear again.
Yeah, it was all there ? the glitzy gear, the camp narcissistic posturing ? but overriding all of that: the sheer talent of the man as live performer. After his false finale (?L,L & H?) he encored (solo and sweating) by holding that hyped up standing-in-their-seats just-let-us-party audience spellbound with ? I cringe as I speak ? ?Four Green Fields?. Just the voice, unaccompanied. You couldn?t hear a pin drop, the only movement the shadow of his arms against the ornate ceiling. Verse after verse of that crap political ballad. Now, that?s ball. That?s ?magic?, as he said.
Keep up the jogging, Brian. I?ll be at your elbow. Or maybe your rear. Only 60 years to go. n