ISOBEL CAMPBELL
Ex-belle & Sebastian singer on her latest solo foray
What film could your new endeavour soundtrack? Midnight Cowboy, or a Judd Apatow movie with Paul Rudd [laughs]. Is there anything still unissued? There is, scattered in many sheds and garages across the globe. A cassette tape recording from ’95 including Is It Wicked Not To Care, is, I bet, at my mum’s house. What unfulfilled ambitions do you have? I’ve always wanted to make a soul record, and do a little behind-thescenes writing, like for Mark Lanegan. Where were you when you first heard one of your songs on vinyl? In bed, rudely awakened, at the old family home, at 12, Northland Drive, Scotstoun, Glasgow, cursing and seething. I didn’t move out until I was 25 – some kind of safety net, alongside the creature comforts. My mother took Belle & Sebastian’s success as her own personal triumph and woke me up every morning with the records blasting: Tigermilk, If You’re Feeling Sinister, The Gentle Waves. Blew the speakers on her record-player! Baby boomer parenting, and she was one of the dodos responsible for buying Engelbert Humperdinck’s Release Me and keeping Strawberry Fields from No 1. Yuck! What was your favourite record shop when you started out? The first floor of John Smith’s Book Shop, Byres Road, Hillhead, Glasgow. I worked there, along with Andrew Divine, who DJ’D at the Art School, Good Foot, and Stephen Pastel. They had the best record collections and knew what’s what. Also, Missing Records, Wellington Street, Glasgow, where I acquired Orange Juice’s You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever LP second-hand. Bliss! What was your first record? On my first solo outing to Clydebank in 1987 with Fiona Mclellan, I bought Taylor Dayne’s Tell It To My Heart, from Boots. The next vinyl that I bought was Iron Maiden’s Seventh Son of A Seventh Son in 1988, from In Echo, Byres Road, Glasgow. Bit of a U-turn! What record made you want to go pro? Stan Getz/joao Gilberto Getz/ Gilberto. Astrud Gilberto’s singing led me to believe that perhaps I might sing. Singing along felt transportive, uplifting. What records most influenced your style? Getz/gilberto, and Lee Hazlewood’s Nancy & Lee, which inspired Mark [Lanegan] and I on Ballad
Of The Broken Seas.
Which of your songs is the most personal? Something To Believe. So many of the songs that I wrote for the big guy were so fragile, acoustic and sparse. Sometimes Mark hated me for that, I think [laughs]. He used to say, “I feel like I’m butt naked”. But part of him was enjoying and gaining from that experience. I used to love standing to one side, listening to that rich, deep voice. On The Circus Is Leaving Town, you could hear a pin drop. He felt very exposed, but he delivered night after night. Both of those songs are very personal, very descriptive of me, my worldview, existential crisis and loneliness, and life’s experience. I remember working on Something To Believe, gazing out of the lounge window at 90,
Marlborough Avenue, Broomhill, Glasgow, feeling inexplicably sad and bereft – a feeling that creeps up from time to time. Standing in yogi’s tree pose, observing a wood pigeon, thinking ‘WTF’.
Do you plan a book?
I met with a publisher last year. At first, I felt very resistant. I burst into tears in the meeting and had to run out. Everything felt so bleak on the train ride home. But I’m coming around now. Lots of stuff has been percolating. It’ll be a good challenge once
I carve out time, get disciplined and focused, and just really get my shit together somehow and hurry before I forget everything!
Of all the people that you’ve worked with, who taught you the most?
Bill Wells. 200% for the music, 200% of the time. No BS. Just music! I’m the same. I don’t think that I’d consider staying in the rancid music business, with all its repulsive stresses and strains, for longer than two seconds, if I didn’t love music so much. That’s why I stay. Bill’s always had this open approach to creating and been a constant, loyal friend, sharing what he’s discovering and listening to. That’s inspiring. Equally, Evie Sands. An honour knowing her, sharing discussions, ideas, outlooks, and hearing her paving the way. Which of your homes should have a blue plaque? Flat 2/1, 90, Marlborough Avenue. I spent all my time during nine years there in the tiny kitchen, writing all the songs for Ballad Of The Broken Seas, Sunday At Devil Dirt and Keep Me In Mind Sweetheart. A real monk’s existence – all I did back then. I’d sit in the kitchen or by the piano, writing, then head to the studio, back and forth I went. That was it! Very focused and reclusive, writing songs for Mark and duets for us. I also lived in Eddie Van Halen’s childhood home for three years. He showed up at the door one Sunday morning in October 2019. I was in bed. My other half answered the door and didn’t invite him in! The plaque on that home would be Eddie’s and Alex’s!
“THE RANCID MUSIC BUSINESS IS ALL REPULSIVE STRESSES AND STRAINS, BUT I LOVE MUSIC”
Isobel Campbell Bow To Love blue, yellow LPS, 2CD are on Cooking Vinyl, 17 May.