Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Elison Moye is back. It all began a long time ago,
of course, with Yazoo instant fame. A year later it
all blew up. She went solo. Then it really took
off and here we are twenty three million albums later,
on a long gap between drinks with a new piece
of work and the tour which includes some stops. Here
all the details shortly, but firstly from Brighton in the UK.
Ellison Moye, good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Thank you very much, Good morning to you.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I was looking at your Radio two piano room. Does
the name Neil Finn mean anything to you, crowded house
split ends.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yes, certainly, it certainly is a name. I don't know him,
but absolutely his name.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yes, he was in the Radio two piano room a
couple of months ago when we talked to him on
the program and he said he was nervous as all
heck because it's done live. Was yours live?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
No, it wasn't live.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
It was a pre record, you know, So you know
it's a live recording in terms of the fact that
it's done there with the orchestra, and there's nothing there's
no Jiggree Pocria gas on, there's no editing, so it's
a live take, but it was a pre record.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Are you happy with it? It was beautiful?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, you know, I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
And I think the very fact that it doesn't go
out live at that minute it kind of really helps
me because otherwise, when it's live live, I just spend
the whole time thinking I'm going to forget the words,
going to forget the words, you know, and it just
really it's really stressful. So knowing the fact that if
you do mess up, you can go again is good.
And as it was, we didn't mess up, so so
you know, I was laughing.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Talk to me about your voice. It's got some magnificence.
I mean, the whole thing here is there's been a
gap between you know, records and tours and stuff like that.
But so it's been a while since I listened to you.
There's something's happened to your voice. There's a gravitas, a weight,
I don't know, an age to it.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, I think so there.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I just think there's a kind of a great and
you know, there's a greater understanding of it and a
greater understanding of language and how you want to use
it as an expressive instrument. You know, and that you know,
it's less of a physical change and more of an
emotional change, just a greater understanding. You know. It's like
when you're young, you think it's all about you think
(02:00):
it's all about the kind of showboating or the volume,
and as you get older you understand there's so much
more nuanced to emotion than that. Sometimes it can be
a you know, sometimes it can be a really dead
internal feeling, and it's about wanting to use that instrument
to all the different degrees and not just having it
on full on all the time.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So take me through this process a gap between drinks,
as they say, So we have some new music, will
have a you tour. How does that come about? And
how emotionally do you deal with it?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, I'm someone that really responds to the day.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
I mean, I hyper focus, but my hyper focus can
go all over the place.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Right before I started a recording this album, for example,
I was at university. So I'd been at university for
four years before that. As it will kind of happen
with lockdown, everything seemed a good time to actually start
my education, seeing as I left school at sixteen or
else it might be in diy, I might be like
really into building stuff, so I sort of like decide
(03:06):
what I'm going to do kind of a month by
month and then and then go with it. And it
felt high time I wanted to re engage with music.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I mean, I'm fully aware of.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
My age and the fact that that can stop at
any time, you know, any time. I might wake up
one day and find out I can't sing anymore, in
which case, without any regret, I'll just turn my focus
somewhere else. But whilst I'm on it, I want to
do it. Also, when I was in the middle of college,
I went off to do like a guest slot with
the Tears for Fears thing, and I hadn't sung for
(03:35):
a couple of years and just really liked it. Singing
live is my main focus, and so everything I do
in terms of recording is to direct it towards the stage.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I've got the impression correct me if I'm wrong over
the years having followed you that because you're so talented
at music, it always you enjoyed it, but it probably
came at too great a price at times, and if
you could have been less successful but still sung would
have suited you better. Is that fear or not.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
No, I think that's absolutely fair. You know.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It's like I'm quite a cheap day. You know, it's
like I've never aspired to own lots of things, and
you know, I you know, I enjoy the fact that
I'm comfortable, but that's because I am then in a
position to say no. So the idea of doing something
just to be famous or to be recognized, that that,
to me is kind of like the downside of it.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
You know. That's like you say, that's the price you pay.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
And that's not to disrespect anybody that's supported me, because
I'm incredibly.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Grateful for that.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
But I really do enjoy just being a part of
a community, a part of a neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
You know. I like living a regular life.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
And it's and it's always a bit weird when someone
sees you as other, which let often people imagine that's
what happens to you when you become well known.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
But that's the ideal, isn't it. Because there are so
many people who get famous, love fame, and then when
the fame goes, it's they don't know what to do
with themselves.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, well I think they struggle.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
I think you know, you see that with a lot
of people that they've had their big hit and they
do struggle from that lack of attention. Well I kind
of never did, because it's not like I was the
great beauty or someone that always attracted positive comment. You know,
there's always been a you know, there's always been quite
a task to being a bit of an oddible being
(05:20):
kind of well known. So it's never the like it
was that much pleasure. But I think for those people
when they lose that platform, it becomes quite desperate for them.
So they're always thinking, you know, it's just I just
need the right song. I just need the right song
for me. It's about I want the right song, but
I want the right song to please me, and sometimes
that suits a larger audience, and sometimes it doesn't garner
(05:42):
any attention at all, and that's kind of an irrelevance
to me. It's not what I'm searching after. So I
think if you are an artist and without wanting to
sound PONCEI that is.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
What I am.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
You know that then you carry on working and you
can and thinking, you care and write and regardless about
whether you've got people watching you or not. So you know,
a career is a series of sine waves.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
You know you're going to go up.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
People are going to notice, You're going to get a tension,
and then you're going to drop out of attention. And
that isn't always to do with the quality of your work.
You know, that's just about the zeitgeist. And you know,
I think that's fair enough because you know, you can't
expect to be centered for the whole of your life.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
But yeah, it's about your reason.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Why you're doing and if you're doing it to be
if famous, then you're on a hide into nothing because
no one cares about anyone for that long.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yes, that's true. Now listen, any trepidation about stepping out.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Oh yeah, there's always there's always trepidation.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
I think for me, the trepidation is based on the
fact that, you know, I have been working for forty years.
I have been making music and evolving as an artist.
And obviously there are some people that are only going
to know you for your hits and that kind of
comes into a couple of years, so they have.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
No idea of the trajecture you've been on.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So there is always that anxiety that sometimes people are
expecting a kind of act and for someone like me.
They in some ways, they can expect someone that's been
quite you know, you know, a typical, a romantic singer,
which is is not what I am at all, and
so that can be shocking for them, and so then
(07:15):
that's shocking for me. So it's kind of like one
of those home alone moments where you scream at.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yourself in the mirror. You know, you're both a bit
like that.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
But then at the same time, I know I've also
got you know, I have carried with me a group
of supporters that have gone along that journey, and so
you know, for them, I'm really excited to be there
for them because you know, I'm very aware, you know,
I'm quite mindful about the fact that, yeah, I'm getting older,
I'm with granny, I'm all these kind of things. You know,
(07:45):
touring is not going to be something that has another
forty years on top of it. So every time I
go on tour, I'm very aware that it could be
the last time that I do it. So just the
thought that I could come out there at least one
more time and have a chance to perform is you know,
it's obviously an exciting thing to be able to do,
and you know.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
And I love the country.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
I love I love seeing that difference and the beauty
in the air and just watching people running everywhere. I
just think is the most fantastic thing.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
That's brilliant. It's a retrospective. The Albument's off some new
you got some some reworks and then so so in
calling it a retrospective and looking back forty years, what
do you make of it all?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Well, it's it's it's kind of a funny thing because
it's it's not exactly a retrospective. It's it's kind of
like a view. It's you know, it's like a view
over the whole thing, which is why there's the point
of there being two new songs, because this is not
like some kind of brackets, you know, this is the
Alison Moye that has that was it's it's this is
the trajectory. This is the journey that I am having
(08:49):
and continue to have. And like I say, you know
that that might only have a very short distance in
the future, but it's not something that's been tied off.
It's like, I'm a working artist and and that's what
I'm doing. And there's also the fact that when you
have been working for forty years as a solo artist,
there's going to be a lot, you know, to be
quite schismatic. They're kind of the changes in style and
(09:11):
sound that happen over the years, and so if you
just take that and reproduce it on stage, you can
end up with some nightmare karaoke monster you know, that
just just has that has no identity of its own.
And so the whole purpose of choosing these songs, you know,
they are key songs, but they're by no means all
(09:32):
of the most important songs. For example, my last two
albums that I've done, you know, for me were really
pretty great, and I didn't need to delve into them.
You know that they're recent enough to stand as they are.
But the point is is to pull in that whole
body of work in such a way that you can
make it a cohesive set, so that when you then
take those forty years on tour, you're you're performing a
(09:55):
set that sits together, you know, as I suppose as
opposed to a karaoke night.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
How did the study go, by the way, did you graduate?
Did you pass?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yes? I did, I got a first.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Fantastic and you're going to do anything with her or
it was just an intellectual exercise.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
No, no what it was it was.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I did a degree in fineite printmaking, and that's kind
of it was kind of been a bit of a
bee in my bonnet because I'd come from generations of
lithographic printers. And I remember when I left school, because
I left school at sixteen without any qualifications, and I
remember saying to my dad, who's a Frenchman, so he
doug Ley, you know, and he learned that speak English
in London, so it's a funny old accent like he's
(10:33):
Greek or something, and you know, it was a real patriarch.
And I said to him, you know, I really wanted
to go into the print and you know he was horrified.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
He say, no, not ghost, no shop. You know.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
So it was like one of those things that I
was kind of forbidden to go into it. So, you know,
I've always been a little bit you know, persistent, and
I thought one day I'm going to get around to it.
So when lockdown happened, and I say, I had a
bit of a chip on my shoulder because I never
did get an educ you know, did any further education.
I thought I'd go for it and then kind of hope.
I focused into it and yes, and so consequently I
(11:07):
did the artwork on the album and I've also done
a couple of the lyric videos with images that I've
made working with someone who knows you know, the technology
has turned that into a movement film. So yeah, I've
moved that into my artwork. And then when when I
finished touring, no doubt then I should be going back
(11:28):
into printing.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Then fantastic, Well it is my next year. We look
forward to welcoming you back to New Zealand. Lovely to
catch up and talk with you, and I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Very very much, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Key is the album and She's here on Auckland, Wellington.
Christ j it'e May twenty one, twenty four, twenty sixth.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Look forward to it For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
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