July 14, 2026 • 12 mins
Fresh off the announcement he's headlining Selwyn Sounds 2027, British musician and co-founder of the iconic group Eurythmics Dave Stewart joined John MacDonald ahead of the tenth anniversary for the popular all-day music festival.
They discussed the new sound of Eurythmics all-female band, and how he started creating the renowned 1983 album Sweet Dreams in his bedroom.
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It'd be hi A doing a good day, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Very well? Growing up in Sunderland in Northeast England, all
you cared about was playing football, and I was reading
that you had dreams of playing for Sunderland yourself, and
you still support Sunderland. But how do you write England's
chances against Argentina tomorrow in the World Cup.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Argentina have made a few mistakes as they've been going along.
I think it's a possibility that England could win, but
it'll be a very tricky and tough match, and Massio
seems to pull something out of the hat in the
last ten or fifteen minutes, which is worrying.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Anyway, we'll see how that plays out. Because you were
so into football when you were young, I gather you
had no interest in music all until you were in
your teens. Looking back on that, how unusual does that seem,
given how successful how successful you've been in music.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I don't know, because you see, I was so obsessed
with football that I practiced all the time, and I
played for three teams on a Saturday and when that finished,
I would then go under the street light and play.
So I definitely had that thing of like determination to
do something. So when I actually picked up the guitar
(01:27):
and realized, oh, this is like a magical thing. I
then practiced that eight hours or nine hours a day.
I practiced it so much that my dad got really
worried and took me to the doctor because he thought
I was pushing in the side of my rib too
much and maybe altering my shape of my chest. But
(01:49):
then I realized it wasn't that. He was just trying
to get the doctor to say, oh, yes, you should
do it less, because I was driving a mad I
think with just playing the guitar constantly around the house.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
You know what the doctor say, He said.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
There's absolutely nothing w with these chests. My departments probably
are not the right down fair, go to.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Another doctor take an opinion, because the only reason you
picked up the guitar was because you jured your knee
and you couldn't play football anymore.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Exactly. Yeah, I was on the football field and this
I was a wing at this kid playing, you know, defending,
slid in the mud with his leg outstretched and sort
of smacked into my knee which sort of bent semi
backwards and broke my kneecap into about three places. So yeah,
(02:37):
I couldn't really walk properly for months and months and months,
and the doctor, actually the surgeon told me, you know,
don't worry to him, you'll be up and playing soccer
football again in like maybe nine months a year, and
I was like fourteen. I'm like what, it sounds like
a lifetime, you know. So I was really depressed. At
(02:58):
the same month of this happening, or the same three
months my mom left my dad and went to London,
and then my dad was really depressed and my brother
was at college. I was just sat on my own
in the house, just thinking, well, that's the end of
my life, you know, that's the end of my world.
You know. It's like people say, you know, like you know,
(03:20):
sometimes you need to hit rock bottom to then go
rocketing up again, or you know, when one door closes,
another one opens, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, because it did, because it was about that time,
wasn't because you're the only music you'd been exposed to
was the Rogers and hemistein musicals that your father used
to play on the on the record player. But when
you were thirteen at that point you discovered the blues
and that changed your life.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, I say, yeah, I see yeah. My dad was
obsessed with musicals and sang along with them in the
morning before I went to work, and there was all
that you know, the King and I and South Pacific
and all these Rogers and Hammerstein beautiful arrangements which later
on in life, and you know, when I was making albums,
(04:06):
you know, Eurythmics albums and producing them and co writing
every song with Annie, I realize, oh yeah, all of
this knowledge that was going on in my brain for
years through my dad came out in some of the arrangements.
So Eurythmic songs could go on twists and turns. And
(04:28):
Annie also was classically trained, so our music could go
anywhere we wanted to. So, you know, we could literally
turn into an R and B stacks or motown group,
or we could be electronic group, or we could sound
for orchestral like and here comes the Rain Again. And
(04:49):
so you know, even though I was obsessed with blues music,
which comes out in Missionary Man or you know, you know,
whatever you like, a ball and chain or rosary songs,
we could also go anywhere.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
You know, I hear a lot of the Franklin and
your museic.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, well, you know, obviously, then we we wrote a
song called Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves and and
we did that, you know, with Aretha and and he
had written this those lyrics. Has an amazing poem. Came
in the studio and we'd already finished our album. I said,
(05:27):
I've just written this really quat poem, and I started
reading it and then I started playing do Do Do
Do on my guitar, and very quickly we worked out
this song, and then everybody was going on, you should
actually record it, and then it was it could be
(05:48):
a duet, and then people were starting at names like
Tina Turner this that, and then our label at the
time they were saying, what about Aretha Franklin. And of
course Annie was a bit terrified going to Detroit and
standing in them, you know, one of Mike facing Aretha Franklin.
(06:09):
But she did it and pulled it off and it
was amazing experience.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Before starting the Eurythmics, you mentioned Eddie, you were in
a relationship with her. How did you go from being
a couple to being two axes in a band together.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Well, it's like only something that crazy people would do, right, Yeah,
we lived together for about four years and we were
playing in another band which we actually came to Australia,
but we didn't write any of the songs. There was
another guy who wrote all the songs and we were
just in the band. But we lived together as a
couple and went all, you know, touring around the world.
(06:45):
And we had lived in a squad actually at the beginning,
whether in the first few years, which is a direlict house,
you know, and so we'd been through all of the
roughest times, and then we had some modicum of success
in that band. And then when we decided to live
separately after about well at what was a bit nuts
(07:07):
because we were decided to live separately, but and he
only moved upstairs. And then then we decided, you know,
I got these sort of little miniature synthesizers because our
whole world actually started really in Australian Woga woga. Yeah.
(07:28):
I had bought this funny little portable plastic kind of
synthesizer thing and I was carrying it around with me
and I could make like sort of great sort of
synthesizer bass sounds on it, and I was starting to
do some experiments there. When I got back to London,
I managed to get a drum machine and a couple
(07:50):
of other you know, really early on, kind of very basic,
little tiny synthesizer. It's called a wasp and then a
spider and a caterpillar. Sounds weird, but they were like
middle sort of plastic kind of and to make the
beginning of the Sweet Dreams album. You know, before that,
(08:11):
we made another album and you and I as your
ethics called in the garden. But during that process, I
realized I really wanted to be able to make the
records you know, myself. They produced them, and so that
that was inspiration for me to actually start making in
my bedroom. Actually the Sweet Dreams album. Sweet Dreams then
(08:35):
became number one in America and the hit all over
the world, and our lives like leapt into a different
gear change.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
You described that as a blues song. How was that
a blue song? Because it's quite weird because you were
a guy playing the guitar tianas a day, you were
enter the blows into Bob Dylan, and then suddenly you're
writing songs using synthesizers and drum machines.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Well, yeah, because well it doesn't really matter to me
the way on which I play or record something, whether
it's on a piano or a symphasize or a guitar.
But the root of everything really to me as always
goes back to the blues, which is what I was
(09:18):
obsessed with when I was a kid and still am.
In fact, I made a movie called Deep Blues. I
produced it with this great director and went out into
the sort of Delta area, Mississippi, filmed all of these
older blues players too, sometimes in their eighties or whatever,
(09:40):
and captured them all on film. It's called Deep Blues Eaten.
I think you can get it on various I think
Apple or Yeah. And that was just like paying homage
back to it, you know where it started.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
In twenty thirteen, you released a song called Drugs Taught
Me to listen, and I gather that you used drugs
from a very young age. What did they take.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
It told me? I say it in the lyrics of
the song, the lyrics of drugs taught me a lesson. Well,
basically I'm saying things like drugs taught me a lesson
how not to sleep at night? You know it taught
me all these really terrible things, and it's a hard
lesson to learn. You know, I went through a period
of like devouring every drug I could possibly see. But
(10:33):
this is only between the ages of about seventeen and
say twenty five something like that. LSD full load of times,
like so many different kinds of or mind altering the drugs.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah, yeah, well your life is very different now. I mean,
we're really looking forward to seeing it sell and sounds
next year. But before we let you go, can you
just tell us exactly where you are right now?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Oh? Locational? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Oh yeah, you're location. We'll keep it to location.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Well, I don't want to say exactly where I am in, Okay.
What I'm excited about is, you know, I have an
amazing old female band that I've worked with. We've done
about seventy gigs so far, shows in America and all
around Europe. And obviously I've worked with the Mess around
(11:28):
Morosi maybe about for about sixteen years or something like that,
since I first met her in when she came to America,
And you know, she's one of the greatest singers I've
ever recorded, and so yeah, I love doing these shows.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Right, We're looking forward to it. But you're on an
island in the Caribbean right now, is that right?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah? Vaguely yeah, Hi.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
That's brilliant. I'll leave you to it. It sounds idyllic
wherever you are, and we're looking forward to saying you
next year. Dank Stuart, thanks for your time today.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I cheers for more from Category Mornings with John McDonald.
Listen live to news talks at be Christchurch from nine
am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It'd be hi A doing a good day, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Very well? Growing up in Sunderland in Northeast England, all
you cared about was playing football, and I was reading
that you had dreams of playing for Sunderland yourself, and
you still support Sunderland. But how do you write England's
chances against Argentina tomorrow in the World Cup.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Argentina have made a few mistakes as they've been going along.
I think it's a possibility that England could win, but
it'll be a very tricky and tough match, and Massio
seems to pull something out of the hat in the
last ten or fifteen minutes, which is worrying.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Anyway, we'll see how that plays out. Because you were
so into football when you were young, I gather you
had no interest in music all until you were in
your teens. Looking back on that, how unusual does that seem,
given how successful how successful you've been in music.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I don't know, because you see, I was so obsessed
with football that I practiced all the time, and I
played for three teams on a Saturday and when that finished,
I would then go under the street light and play.
So I definitely had that thing of like determination to
do something. So when I actually picked up the guitar
(01:27):
and realized, oh, this is like a magical thing. I
then practiced that eight hours or nine hours a day.
I practiced it so much that my dad got really
worried and took me to the doctor because he thought
I was pushing in the side of my rib too
much and maybe altering my shape of my chest. But
(01:49):
then I realized it wasn't that. He was just trying
to get the doctor to say, oh, yes, you should
do it less, because I was driving a mad I
think with just playing the guitar constantly around the house.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
You know what the doctor say, He said.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
There's absolutely nothing w with these chests. My departments probably
are not the right down fair, go to.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Another doctor take an opinion, because the only reason you
picked up the guitar was because you jured your knee
and you couldn't play football anymore.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Exactly. Yeah, I was on the football field and this
I was a wing at this kid playing, you know, defending,
slid in the mud with his leg outstretched and sort
of smacked into my knee which sort of bent semi
backwards and broke my kneecap into about three places. So yeah,
(02:37):
I couldn't really walk properly for months and months and months,
and the doctor, actually the surgeon told me, you know,
don't worry to him, you'll be up and playing soccer
football again in like maybe nine months a year, and
I was like fourteen. I'm like what, it sounds like
a lifetime, you know. So I was really depressed. At
(02:58):
the same month of this happening, or the same three
months my mom left my dad and went to London,
and then my dad was really depressed and my brother
was at college. I was just sat on my own
in the house, just thinking, well, that's the end of
my life, you know, that's the end of my world.
You know. It's like people say, you know, like you know,
(03:20):
sometimes you need to hit rock bottom to then go
rocketing up again, or you know, when one door closes,
another one opens, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, because it did, because it was about that time,
wasn't because you're the only music you'd been exposed to
was the Rogers and hemistein musicals that your father used
to play on the on the record player. But when
you were thirteen at that point you discovered the blues
and that changed your life.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, I say, yeah, I see yeah. My dad was
obsessed with musicals and sang along with them in the
morning before I went to work, and there was all
that you know, the King and I and South Pacific
and all these Rogers and Hammerstein beautiful arrangements which later
on in life, and you know, when I was making albums,
(04:06):
you know, Eurythmics albums and producing them and co writing
every song with Annie, I realize, oh yeah, all of
this knowledge that was going on in my brain for
years through my dad came out in some of the arrangements.
So Eurythmic songs could go on twists and turns. And
(04:28):
Annie also was classically trained, so our music could go
anywhere we wanted to. So, you know, we could literally
turn into an R and B stacks or motown group,
or we could be electronic group, or we could sound
for orchestral like and here comes the Rain Again. And
(04:49):
so you know, even though I was obsessed with blues music,
which comes out in Missionary Man or you know, you know,
whatever you like, a ball and chain or rosary songs,
we could also go anywhere.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
You know, I hear a lot of the Franklin and
your museic.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, well, you know, obviously, then we we wrote a
song called Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves and and
we did that, you know, with Aretha and and he
had written this those lyrics. Has an amazing poem. Came
in the studio and we'd already finished our album. I said,
(05:27):
I've just written this really quat poem, and I started
reading it and then I started playing do Do Do
Do on my guitar, and very quickly we worked out
this song, and then everybody was going on, you should
actually record it, and then it was it could be
(05:48):
a duet, and then people were starting at names like
Tina Turner this that, and then our label at the
time they were saying, what about Aretha Franklin. And of
course Annie was a bit terrified going to Detroit and
standing in them, you know, one of Mike facing Aretha Franklin.
(06:09):
But she did it and pulled it off and it
was amazing experience.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Before starting the Eurythmics, you mentioned Eddie, you were in
a relationship with her. How did you go from being
a couple to being two axes in a band together.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Well, it's like only something that crazy people would do, right, Yeah,
we lived together for about four years and we were
playing in another band which we actually came to Australia,
but we didn't write any of the songs. There was
another guy who wrote all the songs and we were
just in the band. But we lived together as a
couple and went all, you know, touring around the world.
(06:45):
And we had lived in a squad actually at the beginning,
whether in the first few years, which is a direlict house,
you know, and so we'd been through all of the
roughest times, and then we had some modicum of success
in that band. And then when we decided to live
separately after about well at what was a bit nuts
(07:07):
because we were decided to live separately, but and he
only moved upstairs. And then then we decided, you know,
I got these sort of little miniature synthesizers because our
whole world actually started really in Australian Woga woga. Yeah.
(07:28):
I had bought this funny little portable plastic kind of
synthesizer thing and I was carrying it around with me
and I could make like sort of great sort of
synthesizer bass sounds on it, and I was starting to
do some experiments there. When I got back to London,
I managed to get a drum machine and a couple
(07:50):
of other you know, really early on, kind of very basic,
little tiny synthesizer. It's called a wasp and then a
spider and a caterpillar. Sounds weird, but they were like
middle sort of plastic kind of and to make the
beginning of the Sweet Dreams album. You know, before that,
(08:11):
we made another album and you and I as your
ethics called in the garden. But during that process, I
realized I really wanted to be able to make the
records you know, myself. They produced them, and so that
that was inspiration for me to actually start making in
my bedroom. Actually the Sweet Dreams album. Sweet Dreams then
(08:35):
became number one in America and the hit all over
the world, and our lives like leapt into a different
gear change.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
You described that as a blues song. How was that
a blue song? Because it's quite weird because you were
a guy playing the guitar tianas a day, you were
enter the blows into Bob Dylan, and then suddenly you're
writing songs using synthesizers and drum machines.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Well, yeah, because well it doesn't really matter to me
the way on which I play or record something, whether
it's on a piano or a symphasize or a guitar.
But the root of everything really to me as always
goes back to the blues, which is what I was
(09:18):
obsessed with when I was a kid and still am.
In fact, I made a movie called Deep Blues. I
produced it with this great director and went out into
the sort of Delta area, Mississippi, filmed all of these
older blues players too, sometimes in their eighties or whatever,
(09:40):
and captured them all on film. It's called Deep Blues Eaten.
I think you can get it on various I think
Apple or Yeah. And that was just like paying homage
back to it, you know where it started.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
In twenty thirteen, you released a song called Drugs Taught
Me to listen, and I gather that you used drugs
from a very young age. What did they take.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
It told me? I say it in the lyrics of
the song, the lyrics of drugs taught me a lesson. Well,
basically I'm saying things like drugs taught me a lesson
how not to sleep at night? You know it taught
me all these really terrible things, and it's a hard
lesson to learn. You know, I went through a period
of like devouring every drug I could possibly see. But
(10:33):
this is only between the ages of about seventeen and
say twenty five something like that. LSD full load of times,
like so many different kinds of or mind altering the drugs.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah, yeah, well your life is very different now. I mean,
we're really looking forward to seeing it sell and sounds
next year. But before we let you go, can you
just tell us exactly where you are right now?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Oh? Locational? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Oh yeah, you're location. We'll keep it to location.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Well, I don't want to say exactly where I am in, Okay.
What I'm excited about is, you know, I have an
amazing old female band that I've worked with. We've done
about seventy gigs so far, shows in America and all
around Europe. And obviously I've worked with the Mess around
(11:28):
Morosi maybe about for about sixteen years or something like that,
since I first met her in when she came to America,
And you know, she's one of the greatest singers I've
ever recorded, and so yeah, I love doing these shows.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Right, We're looking forward to it. But you're on an
island in the Caribbean right now, is that right?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah? Vaguely yeah, Hi.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
That's brilliant. I'll leave you to it. It sounds idyllic
wherever you are, and we're looking forward to saying you
next year. Dank Stuart, thanks for your time today.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I cheers for more from Category Mornings with John McDonald.
Listen live to news talks at be Christchurch from nine
am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com