You Beauty

“My name is Kevin Rowland I’m the leader of the band/I’ve been known to get angry, a little out of hand…” ‘Kevin Rowland’s 13th Time’

Although the song has been around since his Celtic Soul Brothers’ days it’s taken the re-issue of Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ swan-song, Don’t Stand Me Down – in “director’s cut” – for ‘Kevin Rowland’s 13th Time’ to make it onto CD. Those who remember the fiddle-driven, falsetto-chorused live version might be surprised at the version that appears here, a mellow, gentle ballad that mirrors Mr Rowland’s own relaxed persona. “I’m getting older, you know,” he confesses almost apologetically. “I’m just not as angry anymore.”

Dexy’s Midnight Runners released Searching For The Young Soul Rebels in 1980. A record of astonishing power, passion and beauty it spawned the No. 1 hit-single ‘Geno’ – a tribute to ‘60s soul veteran Geno Washinton – but the brass driven structure led to Dexy’s being slotted uncomfortably into the burgeoning ska scene in the eyes of many. Other single releases faired less well in the charts. At the time, Rowland had a reputation as a dictatorial band leader who insisted that his band mates accompany him on training runs. The sleeve notes to ‘Rebels read like a political manifesto and on one occasion Rowland’s dissatisfaction with the music media led him to refuse to do interviews, instead taking out a full-page ad in the NME to air his views. His emergence in 1982 with Dexy’s Mk II, now with a rural gypsy look and a number 1 album, Too Rye Aye, and another chart-topping single, ‘Come On Eileen’ promised, and to a degree delivered, great things. Unfortunately yet again dissent in the ranks led to the implosion of the band in 1983.

Don’t Stand Me Down was released in 1985 and if Rowland had been deliberately trying to confound his critics it’s difficult to see how he could have done it better. The band, now a three-piece with Billy Adams on guitar and Helen O’Hara on fiddle appear on the cover in Ivy-league preppie costume, looking for all the world like Wall St lawyers enjoying a weekend at the Hamptons. This was not what was expected of Red Rowland. Musically the production values sanitised the soulful nature of the songs, but again Rowland himself might admit that the seven-minute ‘This Is What She’s Like’, while a stunning love song, was always an unlikely chart contender.

“I dunno about that,” muses Rowland, “but I agree with you about the production. I was told that we had to use a device called a stereo enhancer which would make the record more suitable for airplay. I was told that the quality wouldn’t suffer, but the record would sound too quiet without it. And, ironically, because I was aware that I had a reputation for being occasionally too much of a perfectionist I let it go. And that was a mistake. All the subtlety of the recording was lost. So the release this time around really is the director’s cut, if you like. This is how the album was supposed to sound.

“Another thing I’m pleased about is that this CD features the videos for ‘This Is What She’s Like’, ‘My National Pride’ and ‘I Love You (Listen To This’ which weren’t widely seen at the time of the previous releases.”

And was the preppie look mis-guided in retrospect?

“Fuck no! I think we looked smart.”

This, of course comes from the man who appeared on the sleeve of 1999’s solo outing My Beauty in a dress. “I don’t regret that either,” he insists. “I’d spent a lot of my life convinced that I wasn’t a sexy person, I was uncomfortable with the whole idea of my own sexual self. And quite simply, dressing up in delicate fabrics made me feel sexy. I come from a generation of guys for whom women were an absolute mystery, an unsolveable puzzle and that’s bound to affect how you think of yourself and how you think others look at you. And by wearing a dress I tapped into something that allowed me to see myself as a sexy guy.”

Although his solo career has included some minor hits he’s yet to match the success he achieved in his Dexy’s hey-day. His latest live outing has seen him singing solo on The Look’s tour, yet he’s not dismissing the possibility of working with Adams and O’Hara in the future.

“There are no plans to work together at the moment,” he says, “but I’m still in touch with Billy, who’s doing his own thing right now and Helen, who’s now married. So I wouldn’t say that that it’s impossible that we’d ever work together. Never say never.”

Finally, given his eventful life from punk to preppie, from Dexy’s to Drag Queen, has he any intentions of writing his autobiography? I, among many others I tell him, would want to be first in the queue at Waterstones.

“Funnily enough,” he considers, “you’re the second journalist that’s asked me that today. And my response is that I’m not finished yet, I’m not at a stage where I feel able write a complete account of my life. I’ve a lot more to accomplish before I get to that stage. There is, however, a writer currently working on a book about Dexy’s Midnight Runners which should be published in the near future. That’ll have to do you for now.”