Alex in 20...
1. Favourite musician/ band ever? Are you kidding me? Come on. Pick a genre. Rachmaninoff for the Romantics. Mozart and Beethoven – because. Weather Report for Modern Jazz. Duke Ellington for Big Bands. The Beatles for The Greatest Band of All Time. Radiohead for The Best Band of the Late 20th Century. Best Hip hop, Dr. Dre. Best Rock: Classic Rock, Led Zeppelin; Modern Rock, The Black Keys. Best Female Soul Artist, Aretha Franklin. Best Female Jazz Artist, OMG! Sarah Vaughan. Ella Fitzgerald, no, wait a minute – ‘My baby just cares for me’ – Nina Simone! I wouldn’t know where to begin. I had a massive problem coming up with 100 albums for a variation on Desert Island Discs. I sat there for a month and couldn’t narrow it down.
2. Favourite SA muso? Everybody! Through my wife’s contacts, and through friends who were producers and audio engineers, I got to meet the musos. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to be on the SA Musicians’ Alliance. Ray Phiri and I have been friends for a thousand years. One of the nicest people I ever met was Jabu Khanyile from Bayete. Brenda Fassie was amazing. Sipho is a wonderful man. They’re all great. And then later, Freshlyground and all the rest. For my wife and I, ‘our song’ is by a band we idolise: the magnificent Bright Blue. It’s called ‘Where Would I Go?’ – ‘Nobody but you knows who I am at all/ Where would I go?’
3. Most memorable interview with a musician? R.E.M., in Stockholm. South Africa had just become a nice, friendly country again and I was tagged along with the Swedish journalists. Each of the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Scandis went in and each of them came out dejected and broken. Michael Stipe is notoriously bitchy in an interview: ask a dof question and he’s inclined to ignore you. I was last; I was scheduled for 15 minutes, and I’m overjoyed to tell you that it lasted an hour! Stipe and I hit it off on a musical level – I was invited to dinner with the man!
4. Favourite exercise? Golf is my thing. Sadly, our last Beagle died last year. I was the daily walker of Beagles.
5. Books you’re reading? I’ve just finished Bill Bryson’s The Road to Little Dribbling. I’ve been rereading Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything. Whenever something happens, like a breaking story on the Keystone XL Pipeline, I take it out for context on the war against carbon.
6. Signature dish? Thanks to MasterChef, I‘m allowed back into my kitchen. The kids go, ‘Aw, not steak again!’
7. Spikey hair forever? I’m kind of abandoning it, but what to replace it with? I did buy clippers, to shave it right down, but it might not be what I’m looking for…
8. Do you worry about balding? My grandparents had no bald spots even in their 80s, so no worries.
9. Top of the bucket list? I know albums are anachronistic but I owe it to myself to do an album of my own music.
10. Last time you got angry? The world is unfair, and the country’s unfair. That aside, it’s always the traffic. I’m not saying I’d whip out a cricket bat – but I shout and go red in the face. But there’s a time to understand that you’re just damaging yourself.
11. Do you cultivate a positive mindset? It’s my nature, thank God for that – though the 21st century is doing its damnedest. People say you should count your blessings. I’m lucky that my blessings outweigh the bad stuff by far.
12. What was your plan B? Law: a pro bono guy. But by the time I was 11, I’d pledged to be involved in music.
13. Ever choose silence? Absolutely. Super-important. My car door seals quite nicely. You can sit there and close your eyes for two minutes. It’s a nice decompression trick.
14. What do you listen to in the car? Radio, prodigiously. There’s a lot to listen to. What’s the old adage… ‘Many voices make a democracy’? Well, there they all are: the gamut from Radio Islam to the Jewish ChaiFM, cricket, pop, talk, talk, talk. There’s lots of good stuff – I’m constantly surprised.
15. Most prized possession? Piano! 1927 Steinway. It used to be the photos, but they’re on the Cloud. When we moved to Cape Town we boxed our vinyl collection. We’ve been back in Jozi for 13 years and still haven’t opened the boxes. So the wife and I have an incredible trip down memory lane coming up.
16. Biggest problem right now? How I’m going to have a cigarette; I’m moored to the wall here – the portable’s died! But… staying financially active in a changing world, pulling my weight and being rewarded appropriately.
17. Biggest vice? Smoking. All because I was trying to impress an older girl when I was 11. Damn that girl.
18. Your pick for president? Thuli Madonsela. She’s loyal and would put the Constitution and the country first.
19. Any tattoos? My father was Royal Navy and he always said, ‘You can’t have a tattoo, you weren’t Navy.’ So it stuck.
20. Happy you ended up here? Overjoyed. We left Scotland when I was four. Canada was too cold, Australia and New Zealand, too far. I had bronchitis, so the Highveld seemed genius. I’m utterly blessed. In terms of the vibrancy of the country and the change in the sociopolitical landscape, I’ve had experiences I’d never have been afforded in those other countries. Not even close. I’m thrilled to be South African.