Jeff and Howard Jones talk Things Can Only Get Better Tour

Howard Jones talks about Things Can Only Get Better

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Jeff Stevens. He's the star of the Things Can
Only Get Better tour this summer. It's Howard Jones. Hello, Hello, Howard.
How are you, sir?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, I'm a great times Jeff. I'm very good to
here in the UK in the Southwest where I live.
So great to be speaking with you.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Well, great to be speaking with you as well. We
had a chance to chat a couple summers ago. But
I am so excited because you are coming right here
to beautiful Ohio to do our special radio show that
we've been doing for over twenty five years, and it's
going to be on August eleventh, and we couldn't be
happier to have you back, my friend.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Oh well, great, fantastic. I'm very looking forward to it myself.
So yeah, hopefully I'll get to see you. Jeff.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
My goodness, I mean you look back, it's like we're
about to hit the what the forty first anniversary of
Live Aid that was the summer of things can only
get better? I mean, where has the time gone? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
No, I know, it's amazing. I'm just so happy that
to get the chance to do it, you know, because
this is what I love, you know, putting His Saw
together has been a dream for a long time to
have my own sort of mini festival in a way
where I you know, choose the bands that are going
to come with me, and you know, we're going to

(01:18):
make it like a yearly thing where and it'll be
always called the things can only get about a tour.
And you know, it's a project that I've been working
on for a while and it's finally come together. And
you know, for me, it's a big moment. And to
still be doing this after as you say, forty one
years since you know, eighty five, I mean, it's absolute thrill.

(01:41):
So looking forward to it big time.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Well, Howard, you picked some great folks to come along
with you. Of course it's Wang Chung, the English Beat
and Modern English. Was this something where you picked, like,
you know, some of your buddies that you used to
hang out with a lot back in the day, and
you said, come on, guys, let's just do this.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, I mean, I mean Wang Chang and I've known
Jack Hughes for a long time, but we've never talked together. Oh,
so that was It's great that they that they were
available to do it. English Beat I have talked with before,
and you know, absolutely loved their music and so much energy,

(02:18):
all that great Scar influence, you know, and so it's
I'm so I'm going to be out there watching them
every night. And then you know, Modern English I've talked
with before, very nice people, great songs, and great performers.
So yeah, I mean, I'm so happy that they were

(02:40):
all available to do it and can't wait.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Well we we love. I've had a chance to see
you several times over the last several decades and more
so recently, and one of the things I love is
watching people in the audience. I'm a I'm a Howard
Jones fan. I know a ton of your songs. I
was an MTV guy, so I was just watching MTV
all the time. So obviously a couple of years before

(03:03):
things can only get better. We had what is Love
and New Song and Like to Get You Well, Like
to Get to Know You Well was maybe a little later,
but you know, so I was familiar with Howard Jones
and then in eighty five when you exploded, Holy cal
But I love watching the audience because they don't really
realize how many Howard Jones songs they know until the show.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's a thrill for me as well.
And you're right sometimes, you know, it's taken a while
for people to connect me with with the music. But yeah,
it's like especially things like Everlasting Love, don't you know,
wiz Cane later in the in the in the decade. Yeah,
and also actually funding enough funny, No one is to

(03:43):
blame because that sounded quite a bit different to stuff
that had come earlier. And although people everyone seems to
know the song, but they don't necessarily connect it with me.
So that's one of the great things about the shows,
and it's thanks to pointing out that's great to hear that.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, and I and I think that that your music
has stood the test of time. I mean, that's what's
really amazing too, is that some artists, let's be honest,
you know, kind of end up sounding maybe a little dated.
Your stuff sounded just popped off the radio back in
the eighties, but it's still we're still playing it today
and it still sounds so great today. You have written

(04:23):
some timeless classics.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Oh well, thank you, thank you very much. I mean
feel very fortunate that I did do that, and you know,
I and that people are still thank you for still
playing the music. And yeah, I mean I when I
do manage to catch one of the songs on the radio,
I mean they do, they do pop nicely that I
you know, got to work with group Behind and Stephen
Taylor who made those first two albums with me, and wow,

(04:48):
we have fun making it and records have got such
great energy, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yes, well, and the one that really hooked me that
probably is still I don't know, I've got like three
or four that are tied for my favorite Our Jones songs,
but What Is Love was the one that just knocked
me out in the spring of eighty four, and that
just continues to be like one of my top choices
from you all right.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
That's that's interesting. That's so interesting. I mean, I don't
know what's happened, but I'm looking, you know, you know,
they on my on the street though a streaming stats
and What Is Love is making this massive nice and
it's actually it's actually overtaking things fly get better, which

(05:34):
I wow, I don't I can't explain it. It's suddenly
having a new lease of life. I don't know, maybe
somebody on TikTok. It's crazy. It's it's like going through
the roof. So yeah, that's interesting, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
I don't understand it, but I could possibly take all
the credit for that. It might just be from me
playing it over and over.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Thank you for that.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, really, he's single handedly turned it all around.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Sometimes it's just one person, isn't it. Sometimes like, yeah,
going for it and it starts a fire. You know,
it's great, and that is true.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
That is with with social media, one person can can
really light the fire pretty quickly. So as we look
forward to the Things can Only get Better tour here
in the summer of twenty twenty six, you know, I
got to ask, and I love talking to artists who
have been around a while for my for my eighties
show that I do every week here on iHeartRadio. Did
you ever think back when, even when you were having

(06:39):
all that success, that in twenty twenty six, forty one
years later, you would be, you know, headlining the things
can only get better to her? Isn't it amazing how
that how it's all stood up.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, you know, I never would have thought it was
the proscribed medicine. I was just trying to keep things going,
you know, Yeah, because I was so shocked and thrilled
that anybody wanted to hear and play the music and
buy it. And I was just trying to keep things going.
I couldn't couldn't have possibly thought that, you know, four

(07:13):
decades down the roads, that people would still want to
come and hear the music and still see me perform,
you know, And I'm thrilled about it, and I'm very proud,
and I really feel a responsibility, you know, every time
to make the shows great and for everyone to have
an amazing time and you know, go home uplifted and

(07:35):
with a spring in their step. You know, that's the
that's the aim of it.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah. Well, and some of your songs too, are just
so positive and things can only get better and don't
try to live your life in one day, and you know,
just just on and on. There's just it's just hit
after hit after hit. I want to go back to
no one is to blame while we have another minute
or two here, that that the version that ended up
on the radio is very different than which I think
you alluded to, very different than what you originally put together.

(08:01):
And then you connected with Phil Collins and sort of
kind of changed that up.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Right, Yes, absolutely, And because I really thought this song,
you know, could work really well at radio, but I
didn't think the version we'd done, you know, interaction was
that song was the right version. So I pushed for
it with the record company. And I knew Phil because
we've done Princess Trust concerts and you know, we hang out,

(08:26):
and I really liked him and hopefully he liked me
to He loved the song. So you know, we did
it in like four days that that whole things recorded
me so and it just made itself in a way,
you know, it's really Yeah, I mean, I'm so proud
that it that it turned out well and people still
want to play it. And that's the version that we

(08:48):
are playing live on on the shows now with you know,
because I got this quat new drummer dog Doug Yuell,
who's you know, it plays the electronic drunken so we
can you can do the loop at the front nice
when they come in. Sounds good.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Oh that's awesome. Yeah, obviously, you know, it was a
great song anyway, and then he added the percussive elements
and his backup vocals at just the right time and
made that thing just a number one smash that again,
like like so many of your other would still sounds
great on the radio. So, Howard, thank you so much
for joining me today. I really really appreciate it. I
look forward to seeing you.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, honestly, yeah, I'm sure we can organize that. It
would be great. I'm looking forward to that. Thank you
so much for having me on. Thanks, cheers,