Hot Press meets Kevin Rowland from Dexys

"He was a phenomenon. He was quite underground. He was just brilliant.”

The description could easily be applied to Kevin Rowland. For many he is the ultimate icon, a chameleonic frontman who has shapeshifted through styles, musicially and sartorially, for nearly four decades. In fact, however, the words are Rowland’s own, in reference to soul singer Geno Washington, the subject of the Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ classic ‘Geno’, and the man who presented him with his Q magazine Icon Award last October.
Since the release of the widely praised long-player One Day I’m Going To Soar with a reformed Dexys last June, Rowland has been catapulted back into the public consciousness. Glowing reviews were followed by a victory lap around the summer festival circuit. The Icon Award was long overdue – and the conferrer an inspired choice.
“Geno was great, he was lovely,” remembers Kevin, relaxing in his London home. “When I was a kid in north-west London going to school, aged 14 or 15, all the kids had Geno written on their bags. You never heard his records on the radio, you never saw him on the TV. But apparently in 1966 his album Hand Clappin, Foot Stompin, Funky-Butt was the next biggest seller after Bridge Over Troubled Waters and The Sound Of Music. He was amazing, yet he didn’t really get played.”
Another hero is Van Morrison.
“Van, he’s the greatest! Astral Weeks, Madame George, brilliant,” he enthuses. “The 1974 live album is probably my favourite of all time. The way he arranged those songs is just incredible.”
On the subject of performances, one of the stand-out moments of Electric Picnic 2012 was delivered by Kevin & Co. on the Stradbally stage. The band’s impending Dublin show will differ, the lack of time constraints allowing them to reprise the new LP in its entirety.
“When we finished the album and started to talk about touring my manager said, ‘Why don’t you play the whole thing, start to finish?’” explains Kevin. “I went, ‘I don’t think so’. I remember going to see Roxy Music when I was a kid and was up for hearing some new songs. However, I didn’t want to hear all of them. Then he said, ‘Well, this is different. You haven’t done an album for 27 years. Everyone will be keen to hear the new songs. We’re not going to play massive venues. You don’t have to do a greatest hits’.
“When we did some shows, even before the record was out, as soon as we played the album, we received a standing ovation every night,” he says. “We thought, ‘Right, when we do the next tour let’s do the same thing’.”
Rowland feels the structure works because of the way the record is shaped.
“The album is a narrative. If the next album is not a narrative we won’t play it in sequence,” he says. “You know these people that redo their albums 30 years or so later? Like Van did it on Astral Weeks, Primal Scream did it with Screamadelica – good luck to them but… I think they are going to reissue Don’t Stand Me Down, our 1985 album, and someone said, ‘Oh why don’t you play the album from start to finish?’ You know, what is the point?”
One Day I’m Going To Soar ranked in many critics’ end-of-year top tens and charted globally. Had Rowland anticipated that kind of response?
“I had been planning this album for years, on and off. Did I have expectations? I wanted it to do well and be heard,” he asserts. “We were blessed really. I don’t think anyone expected us to do an LP. We did it in bits and pieces, when we were ready. We took our time. And everything worked.”
The lyrics are especially febrile and emotional.
“Well, I do slave over them,” he says. “When I say slave, I mean do lots of rewrites. I’ll ask the others too. I’ll go to Pete [Williams – bass player] or Mick [Talbot – keyboardist], ‘Do you like that line?’, that sort of thing. Ultimately you’re searching for the truth. You know what I mean? It’s about getting to the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts and makes you feel vulnerable. You have to do it. Sometimes you write a lyric, then you read it about a month later and think, ‘Hang on, that’s not really how it was or how it is’. You get to the truth over a period of time. I think because this record took so long, we got truthful.”
He’s on a roll now.
“All art is about getting to the truth,” he adds. “Once I get to the truth in a lyric there is no way I am going to change it. I feel this compulsion to do it, like in ‘John Joe’ or ‘Lost’.”
Given the ardent nature of the songs, it’s not surprising to hear Kevin admit that he found singing the new material in front of his bandmates awkward at first.
“Some of the lyrics, I cringed at the thought of bringing in,” he admits. “I knew I had to do it. The only thing that has ever made me unhappy, in the past, musically, is when I haven’t been truthful to what I am doing. They’re the only regrets I have.”
Kevin mentions that he went to Uganda recently to write. Is there a new album on
the way?
“Yeah, we are doing some demos,” he says. “I’m happy with it. So far, so good. I don’t know when we’re going to get a chance to record it. After the Irish shows in May, we’re going to Barcelona and more of Europe, then America in June, and there’s more festivals throughout the summer. We might be going back to the US in September. So, god knows when we’ll get to record it! Whenever we do that, it will be the right time. Part of me really wants to get it done now.”
Before he headed to Africa, Kevin took time out to perform on Later With Jools Holland. He looked very sharp indeed.
“Thank you!” he laughs. “I do my best! I did enjoy it, but I’m always nervous before performances. I meditate, I do yoga, I do a lot of preparation.”
He was in good company that night: the cast included Bobby Womack, Petula Clark and Emeli Sandé, amongst others.
“Yeah, I was sitting next to Bobby Womack, I had a good chat with him,” he says. “I also met a couple of The Dubliners, which was great. I got a picture with one of them to show
me mum!”

Dexys give One Day I’m Going To Soar a live airing in the Olympia, Dublin, on May 2 and at the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival on May 3.