BOB DYLAN A RARE INTERVIEW

Rip It Up, Issue 104, 1 March 1986, Page 14

808 DYLAN A RARE INTERVIEW

~ “If Hank Williams was sitting here now what would you ask him?” | said to Bob Dylan, who has listed Williams as one of the people hed most like to have : interviewed. ~ “Pd probably ask him where he gets his drugs,’ Dylan replied, laughing for the only time in our half hour interview. “What else would | ask him? 1 think that would be enough. | always liked his clothes and | probably would have wanted to know where he got those.” Dylan was sitting in the downstairs bar at Auckland’s tres expensive Regent Hotel after his second New Zealand concert. He seemed relaxed and in a playful mood. Probably sensing an extremely nervous journalist sitting opposite him, he threw on one of his masks

and prepared for another verbal sparring match. - Bob Dylan doesn’t often give interviews. When Lincoln Hall, one of three Australians who climbed Mt

Everest, wanted to interview Dylan when he was in Australia for his third concert tour, the answer was a definite no. “Tell him that climbing Mt Everest is easier

than getting an interview with Bob Dylan,” said Elliot Roberts, Dylan's manager. Dylan has rarely been an easy interview subject. As a rule he doesn’t give many, although in the last year, with the release of Empire Burlesque and the retrospective Biograph, Dylan has entered into one of the most verbose periods of his career. But in Australia the 44 year-old Dylan’s . response to questions was closer to the clever, evasive, confident Dylan of the 7 mid-60s who had reporters tearing their hair out. Twenty years later though Dylan is not quite so clever, or quite so verbally quick — just like his records of the last decade. ‘ : - Possibly the most telling — and honest — answer Dylan gave at the.press .. - conference was when he was asked how much of his music was pulled from his subconscious. “It gets less and less that it's pulled up from my subconscious,’ Dylan replied. “l used to pull a lot of it out. | pull some of it out once in a while but not too often.” In 1986 Dylan appears as

someone who's been asked, and answered, every conceivable question and is totally reluctant to respond expansively to any question that doesn't interest him. . Dylan’s consent to do interviews, press conferences, and videos (three things he obviously loathes) seem to be at the behest of manager Roberts, a heavyweight in the : American music industry whose other clients include Tom Petty, Neil Young and the Cars. The Sydney press conference was a typical encounter — Dylan didnt want to be there, and the media were hardly being - - showered with brilliant insights: . Why did you decide to tour Australia with Tom Petty? Because of the money. - -What is the difference between the Bob Dylan of the 60s and the Dylan of today? Not much because | still do most of the same material. In the 60s your songs were described as anthems for a generation. Do you still feel a responsibility in that direction?

No. Do you think you've passed the apex of your career? What career? I've never had a career. I'm someone who doesn't work for a living. Maybe you could put it down to the Australian media’s notorious reputation for asking dumb questions, but after my interview I'm of the opinion that Dylan’s told when he should do an interview and no matter how good or bad the guestions, Bob Dylan talks about what he wants, when he wants — and nothing, excepting maybe a telex from God, is going to get him to change that. : ; My Dylan encounter had a sense of “event” from the - start. “No interviews” had been the position until after the Wednesday nights = concert in Wellington, when the prime mover in Frontier Touring Company, Michael Gudinski, informed me that Dylan would probably do one interview, probably after the Auckland concert or on the plane to Sydney — but the publishing of the interview was to be delayed. It's rumoured that Frontier had paid Dylan for six Sydney concerts and were having trouble selling five, so a widely circulated Dylan interview was deemed necessary to sell the ; remaining seats. After the Auckland concert | drove back to the Regent with the entourage and waited in Gudinski’s room. After half an hour Roberts calls to say that Bob wanted to have a bath. Three quarters of an hour later Bob was clean, relaxed and wanted to call America, supposedly to speak to his children. A half hour later | was told that Robert Zimmerman would see me in the downstairs bar — but the interview may or may not happen. “Talk to him for a few minutes and see how you get.on,” said Gudinski. I'm introduced to a slightly pudgy Dylan who gives a rather weak handshake, his manager suggesting we retire to a table where he remains for the entire period of the conversation, assuming alongside the presence of Dylan an equally intimidatory role, wincing at questions he obviously doesn't find suitable and helping Bob out with responses to others. | started badly, suggesting to Dylan that his association with the Heartbreakers was good for him, bringing out performances full of fire and spirit, the likes of which he hadn't given for a long time. “Since when,” Dylan } taunted. “Come on, tell me when | last gave good shows, you tell me when | last gave spirited shows.” . The last truly great rock and roll shows | can recall hearing on record from Dylan were back in 1974 on his triumphant American tour with the Band, and this prompts Dylan to discourse about how much he enjoys playing with the Heartbreakers and what a good rock and roll band they are, something Tom Petty had also said earlier that day: “He’s told me that this is probably the happiest he's ever been with a group because it is a group, and it's like Bob's just talking to one guy, and | think we just have a sympathetic musical style” said Petty. “But | do think he's kind of in a rock and roll mood right now.” Dylan's two New Zealand concerts were certainly real rock and roll shows, starting loosely, but as the performances went on the playing became more inspired, Dylan singing with

a stronger voice than anyone expected. The repertoire drew from all periods of Dylan's career, but there were also many songs from recent albums, including his current single, ‘When the Night Comes Falling, which received an inspiring treatment, due largely to the presence of four black backup vocalists who were particularly prominent-on the gospeloriented songs. By the time Dylan and his 47-person circus reached Sydney, the shows should have been sizzling, but the first shows were painful to listen to'because of an appalling sound mix. As the week progressed the sound improved, Mark Knopfler got up and played a few solos, and a night later Stevie Nicks joined Dylan and Petty for ‘Knockin’ on Heaven's Door; later describing the five minutes as “one of the greatest experiences of my life”

But one thing that the current version of Bob Dylan isn't is the angry, politically astute figure who wrote songs that became anthems for any number of organisations and movements espousing a variety of causes. When | asked Dylan about his politics he stared back at me from behind his dark sunglasses. “Well | never had any politics, I'm still searching for some,” he said. “Maybe one of these days Il run into

some that make sense to me but at the moment | don't even know what politics are, to tell you the truth.” While thinking to myself that this is a load of garbage, | suggest that if nothing else Dylan’s association with Live Aid and the Farm Aid benefit are a case of him taking a stance on certain political issues. “It might be” he said, with a wry smile. “I don’'t know what politics it would be-other than everybody is affected by the farm crisis, so it transcends politics, | think. “You see I'm not into politics. Il tell you why I'm not into politics. Because you're voting for somebody you trust the guy you're voting for, that’s why you vote for him. You trust the . guy. Anything he wants to do, if you trust him it doesn't matter what he does because you're going to agree with what he does anyway. “But the people who run in politics, they run on issues — what they would do on certain issues, so you don't ever have a chance to know the man, do you know what | mean? If you meet someone that you think is okay, you'll go all the way with that person, right or wrong you're going to go all the way, but if he's just talking about what he's going to do to keep the bar open till after two oclock or whatever, that's just an issue. The guy could be a real dog and say hell do all these things for you.” Dylan said that the problems currently facing farmers in America are the result of “the system, where corporations grow the food™ “Farmers have gotten to be businessmen. You see,

they've turned farmers into businessmen. But when you're talking about food you're not talking about shoes or appliances or automobiles — you're talking about something that people need to survive. | don't really know if it's a real crisis yet. | know the supermarkets still got their shelves pretty much stocked. It's more a crisis of who's got the money to buy the food”

Returning to the 1974 tour with the Band, | reminded Dylan of something that critic Greil Marcus had written. Hed suggested that the concerts then showed that all Dylan wanted to be was like Elvis Presley, an ageing cabaret-styled performer crooning out predictable versions of his hits to adoring and - unquestioning audiences. “Well that's kind of funny, because Greil ... what's his name, never asked me about that,” said Dylan. “You know what happened to Elvis — he’s dead and | don't want to be like that at all. No | never wanted to be like Elvis”

Dylan did admit to listening to a lot of Elvis when he was younger and at the press conference said that one of the highlights of his career was when Presley recorded one of his songs. What other versions of his songs had he found exciting or exceptional? “I thought Diana Ross did a nice version of ‘Forever Young.’ he said. (But was he serious? Subsequent attempts to trace that version have failed!) “That group from Nashville, Jason and the Scorchers, did kind of an interesting version of a song of mine [Absolutely Sweet Marie] from one of

the albums back.” Most praise was for Jimi Hendrix’s version of ‘All Along the Watchtower, and Dylan claimed he hadn't heard the bootlegged version of Bruce Springsteen singing ‘1 Want You, and wasn't going to be into making observations about Springsteen. He was reluctant to talk about his other activities in Australia and wouldn't be drawn out on the recording he was doing in Sydney between concerts.

Soon after arriving, Dylan, Petty, the Heartbreakers, Stevie Nicks and Dylan’s four backup singers went into Festival Records’ studio and with Petty producing, recorded a new song of Dylan’s (reportedly finished at his Sydney hotel), ‘Band of the Hand, the theme song for an unspecified movie.

There's also a film being made of the tour. The fifth and sixth Sydney concerts are being recorded, and filmed by Gillian Armstrong of My Birilliant Career fame. “That’ll be for a film for national television in the States, and probably other parts of the world,” said Dylan, less than enthusiastically. “l picked Gillian because she was really excited about the project and she’s such a competent film maker”

Surely she was picked for better reasons than that, there being dozens of ‘competent” film makers in the world. “I wouldn't exactly say there's dozens,” Dylan muttered.

According to Dylan the film may or may not be shot in black and white, and it may or may not include footage shot at locations other than the Sydney

Entertainment Centre. For someone who traditionally likes to maintain such control over what is released under his name, Dylan was remarkably unconcerned about the format of the film: “We're playing the live shows and were on a tour and it’s too much to be travelling around and be involved in making a film,” he said. In a great interview with Spin magazine recently, Dylan gave a list of people from history hed most like to have interviewed. They included Hank Williams, Apollinaire, Joseph from the Bible, Marilyn Monroe, John F Kennedy, Mohammed, and Paul, the Apostle. | told Dylan about seeing a forum in New York where Lou Reed stood up and said hed just gotten chills down his spine because hed just shook the hand of someone he admired — James Brown. Dylan’s response to being asked if there was anyone who would have that effect on him was both flippant and revealing of his concerns these days: “Well, there's a guy sitting over at the table over there who Id really like to meet,” he said. “His name’s Marty Feldman, hes my accountant. Yeah, | think Id find it pretty exciting shakin’ his hand.” A surprise inclusion in the live concerts has been Dylan’s song about Lenny Bruce. As the song suggests, they did catch a cab together once: “Yeah, | saw him perform in the early 60s, around 1963, before he got caught up in all that legal stuff. He's someone who's never really been attributed the respect that they deserve for what they did and the influence they had on so many people.

Guys like Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, they owe such a huge debt to him but no one makes the same fuss about him as they do about all those other guys that died before they shoulda’” The Dylan who carried a suitcase full of books with him on his 1978 Australasian tour now says he doesn't read much. He did however enjoy Pete Townshend’s new book. “I don't read a whole lot. | go through periods when | may read. | may read some kind of stuff more than other stuff” There are no plans for any further writing other than songs, and there will be no follow-up to his 1966 novel Tarantula. “That was just a chapter in my life and there's only one chapter,” he said. The day of the interview I'd bought a copy of the Irish writer Brendan Behan'’s reminiscences of New York. The preface was: “To America, My new-found land. The man that hates you, hates the human race.” | asked Dylan if he agreed with the sentiments. “That’s kinda putting it a bit strongly,” he said. “It’s the kind of country where if you don't like where you're living or what you're doing, then you can always move on someplace else” At this point Mr Roberts tells me that time’'s up, and that he and Bob are going to have a drink. | stay seated at the table, figuring they'll g 0 to the bar. “And we're staying here,’ said Roberts. “Does that mean you're telling me to get lost?” | ask. “l wasn't going to put it quite like that,” he replied. | think maybe I'll go climb Mt Everest.

Stuart Coupe