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Friday,June16,2017 www.halifaxcourier.co.uk MYWEEK 7
An ever-changing musical path for former Midnight Runner Rowland
Kevin Rowland’s musical path has been one of the most var- ied and intriguing in all of British pop over the last 40 years.
From youthful punk rocker with The Killjoys to the many incarnations of Dexys – the Young Soul Rebel in his leath- er jacket and docker’s hat, the Celtic Soul Brother in dunga- rees and neckerchief, the Ivy League look for Don’t Stand Me Down and la erly in zoot suit, spats and fedora for the more theatrical One Day I’m Going To Soar – the singer and songwriter has always pre- ferred his own route to any prevailing trends.
La erly he has also devel- oped an interest in DJ-ing, and has a show coming up in Calderdale next month. “I’ve always liked music and danc- ing and all that stuff and I’ve just always wanted to do it but I never really got round to it,” the 63-year-old says of his
“You have to play a mixture of styles ... and you have to shock the audience a li le”
Kevin Rowland
Golden Lion, Todmorden, July 8
www.goldenlion.info
sideline. “Then when I was in Brighton about ten years ago a friend showed me how to do it, I got myself some decks and off I went.
“We now call it the Kevin Rowland DJ Show because that’s what it is. It’s quite vis- ual what I do, I also sing along with a couple of the tracks, it’s a bit of a performance, really, but people dance. I learned a lot from Dexys about how to pace a set. It’s different when people are dancing. Dexys normally play in theatres by preference because it’s a very visual, theatrical show, but this is different.
“My aim is to get people on the floor, entertain them but keep them dancing
and you have to play a mixture of styles, you
can’t stay in the same groove all night and you have to shock the audience a little bit so I might play some soul, a bit of reggae, abitoffunk,abitof
sexy rock, a disco track – kind of a real mixture. It’s not real- ly what you play, it’s the order you play them in, that’s what makes a difference.”
Two nights earlier, Row- land will be in Leeds, talking to Chris Madden for one of his Chinwag events at Out- laws Yacht Club on New York Street. The singer says “the
simple fact that it’s for char- ity” persuaded him to do it. “I wouldn’t choose to go and talk in front of people. I’ll sing in front of them, DJ in front of them, but talk in front of them? Nah.
“I’m quite a private guy. But I know when I do things for charity or try to do things for other people the irony is that it helps the person who’s doing it, it helps me.”
Dexys’ singular history has been characterised by constant changes between records. “We just follow our in- stincts, really,” Rowland says. “I don’t know about restless – possibly – but once you’ve done something I absolutely don’t see the point and have no interest in doing the same thing again. It’s like I can’t do
it, once it’s done it’s done, I just lose interest in it. It’s inherent in me. Not like I think ‘I’ve done that, let’s do something else now, that will be inter- esting’, it’s not even like that. I can’t do the same thing again, I’ve got no inspiration
to do it.”
The one common thread is the passion and commit- ment behind each record. He’s reluctant to pinpoint what fuelled them, explaining: “Once you sort of label some- thing or bracket something or title it or give it some kind of reference you sort of kill it a way. Music is magic, really. I don’t want to sound too pre- tentious but it actually is. It’s like when we’ve wri en some- thing I just think, ‘Where did that come from? How did that happen?’ It’s a miracle and I’ve absolutely no idea how the next one’s going to come and that’s what it’s like.”
On the strongly defined look that has accompanied each phase of Dexys, Row- land does admit to having spent “a fair amount” of time thinking about how he want- ed to present each record to the world. “We evolve all the time. It’s an interest for me, it’s something that I really enjoy – clothes – and for me it’s the icing on the cake. Sometimes the music can be quite hard work, the clothes are kind of fun. The music can be enjoy- able but I find it quite hard
work, I put an awful lot into the music. It’s a big undertaking to do an album – you’re talk- ing about a couple of years the way we do them, the last two between all the demo-ing and the writing and the arranging and the honing down the ar- rangements, finding the right players, all of that stuff, then honing the arrangements again. It’s like sculpting or something. It’s a similar proc- ess I suppose with the clothes, but I don’t know, I enjoy the clothes thing more than the music.”
After more than a dec- ade in the wilderness, Dexys made a triumphant return in 2012 with the album One Day I’m Going To Soar. It was followed by Let The Record Show, an album of covers which took Rowland back to his Irish roots. As to where Dexys might go next, Rowland seems less sure. “I’ve got some ideas but I don’t know when or how at the moment,” he says.
Kevin Rowland is at Chin- wag at Outlaws Yacht Club on July 6. He will be DJ-ing at the Golden Lion, Todmorden on July 8.
Star interview