Last updated March 19, 1998
Danny Kelly finds time for (to) Talk Talk.
Like Alsatian guard dogs, first impressions can be useful and comforting, but they're not always to be trusted.
A case in point, Talk Talk's first album and their early TV slots had the needle on the 'dismiss' gauge rocking in the red. Ugly sub-Duran suits and a forced, characterless pop had the dumper beckoning. I had singer Mark Hollis down as a tuxedoed twit. Unreliable first impressions.
This year their second effort, 'It's My Life', slipped out unheralded. Investigation prompted by something vaguely haunting in the single 'Such A Shame' revealed a set of songs set in bleached washes of modernism. It's no 'Blonde on Blonde', but 'Life's' sudden arrival in the US top 40 - salesville - confirmed the feeling that something contrary to initial expectations was afoot.
Hollis, tired from a long flight but now thankfully in human clothes, is a mixture of amazed and blase about the record's commercial success. "God, yeah, I was pretty surprised and very, very pleased. But then in America people are more concerned with music. Over here people are preoccupied with image and trend."
Coming from someone who assiduously weighs everything that he says and writes, this is high grade Mad Talk. Anyway, Mark, what about your own days as a singing clothes horse?
A thoughtful silence.
"Put it like this. Since we signed the record deal, it's been a learning process. You make mistakes and you learn from them. Early on, we were all over the place, and we were incorrectly labelled. There was a lot of serious posing going on at that time and we got tarred with the same brush."
His relief at Talk Talk's escape from Glamworld UK is evident. There is a seriousness in his every statement about music.
"Admiration in music comes with time. I can say that Bacharach's a great songwriter because 20 years on I'm listening to 'Walk On By' and I'm thinking this is happening. Van Morrison is still a happener, still cutting it all the way down the line."
Listening to Mark Hollis, it's easy to see why 'Life' sounds so cared for, so handpolished. Its drawback is that in its determined modernity, he undersells himself, and his beloved songs, emotionally. I can hear your voice on the record, Mark, but I can't hear YOU.
"You may be right. Emotive singers like Van and Otis Redding make very open sounding music. What we do is more closed, textural. Honestly, I often arrange the songs with people like Debussy in mind, so that the singing has to be a texture. If it were different, maybe I could sing it more emotively."
All this care, all this earnestness, all this concern with hoary old songwriting values, makes me wonder if Mark ain't a man seriously out of time. Could he have been more suited to a time when he could decently have been, whisper it, a singer songwriter ? The suggestion causes a look of severe indigestion to sour his features. "Oh no, not that. Not that. Alright, the songs do start as just a piano and my voice, but that whole singer-songwriter thing has such a terrible sound to it. It's as bad as being called a session man!"
I leave him as he, drummer Lee Harris and bassman Paul Webb are steeling themselves for a hefty bout of touring, glad that I've had the chance to correct at least one of those blurred first impressions. Say it loud - Mark Hollis is not a tuxedoed twit!