Vancouver Sun, May 20, 1999

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Elvis Costello


Kerry Gold

Youth is over-rated, says Elvis Costello. At 44, he's still preparing to do his best work.

In a phone conversation from somewhere in southern France, Elvis Costello displays no trace of his long-held reputation as the angry intellectual. On the subject of his near-obsessive touring the last three years and the handful of cameo film appearances he's made lately, he's more like a gleeful professor. Costello is taking a couple days out to make an appearance in a small French film, the nature of which would take too long to explain, he says, almost apologetically. Costello earned a smart-mouth reputation during the '80s, when the Brits stuck it to the Americans with a second invasion led by witty boys like Costello and the Clash. But where is this feisty performer who's so difficult with media? In two interviews with the chatty and articulate 44-year-old Costello in the past four months, he's had the warmth of an English tea cozy. Could it be that Costello has found solace in music and in mid-life?

"It's been a busy sort of time since we spoke last," he says, cheerfully. "I've been doing all this touring, and I've recorded a couple of things that are coming out in movies, which are taking me into a completely different world.

"I also got to do another track with Burt [Bacharach] for the second Austin Powers movie, coming out soon. And we're in it. Look out for that, one. That's a gas. We do a sweet version of "I'll Never Fall in Love Again."

To belabour the Brit metaphor theme, he's also as rambling as an English rose.

"It's a very good time for me," he says, finally pausing. "I think if you only measure yourself in pop music years ... obviously I'm an old guy, but in terms of what most musicians in other fields achieve, I'm in the prime years of my life."

Costello transformed himself from a hollering, pun-wielding quasi-punk into a husky, tuxedo-wearing lounge singer with a hankering for classical music in a space of 21 years (it was that long ago that he emerged onto the scene as critics' pet with My Aim Is True). However, not everyone has taken to his seemingly passive streak. Many fans recoiled at The Juliet Letters, his 1993 collaboration with England's Brodsky Quartet, a voice and string work based on letters sent to Shakespeare's Juliet Capulet.

A year later, Costello returned to his '80s band, the Attractions, to record Brutal Youth, with the help of old cohort Nick Lowe. The album was critically praised, but Costello wasn't ready to settle back into the rock 'n' roll groove yet. He joined forces last year with lounge legend Burt Bacharach, collaborating on Painted From Memory, a standout collection of smouldering and sophisticated ballads that brought out the best in both Costello's lyrical wit and Bacharach's graceful pop sensibility. Clearly, Costello has the energy and confidence to explore, a diligence that may earn him new fans but cost him several along the way. Even diehard Attractions fans, however, should have noticed early on that Costello has always shirked categorization. Take the punk badge, for instance, Who said he was ever a punk?

"I've no idea where that came from," muses the man who once programmed computers for his supper. "It's a label of convenience, isn't it? To pin you in time or a particular area or narrow definition of what they think you should, or may have been, at one time. Obviously what I have done is try to get around that, try to put a human face on it. I can't complain about the impact of those early records and the way in which they have imprinted certain ideas in people's minds.

But people don't like to get old, they don't like to be reminded that things have changed, so they resist change. It's odd that rock 'n' roll started out as a form of rebellion and it has ended up the most deeply conservative music around today."

As if to drive home his departure from amplification, Costello is on tour with long-time arranger and keyboardist Steve Nieve, with whom he did a club tour in 1996, the results of which came out as part of a box set. On this tour, Costello and Nieve have been playing piano and guitar numbers, devoid of a rhythm section, heavy on melodic structure. The duo, who play the Queen Elizabeth Theatre Monday, have been performing arrangements of Attractions songs, Costello-Bacharach songs, and a few covers of other artists songs. They've already toured Europe, Australia and Japan, and, for the sake of a fresh performance, it's seldom that two setlists are alike. Costello has made an effort, however, to include a selection of fan favourites, as well as obscure songs that didn't make it onto anybody's chart, such as "Couldn't Call It Unexpected," or "I Want to Vanish (songs that have meaning for him, he says, unlike "Everyday I Write the Book," a song he wrote in 10 minutes").

"It's got to be fresh to us, to present something new to the audience, particularly when some songs are 20 years old, some are six months old. some are three weeks old, some haven't been written yet," he says, laughing.

Like his Bacharach collaboration, Costello clearly is in his element working with Nieve, as well as operating outside the rock camp, where nuance and subtlety take on greater significance. "Even a band as good as the Attractions would struggle to play some ballads with the same kind of nuance as, say, a jazz band," he explains. "Because the volume of a rock band, even at its quietest, is going off like a bomb."

While he's apparently given up the pyrotechnics, he's not entirely through with rhythm-based music. Costello has plans to pull together another group of musicians, only this time it won't be the Attractions. Costello had toured with his former bandmates after Brutal Youth, but until then relations between him and bassist Bruce Thomas had been strained (Costello allegedly took issue with Thomas's published memoirs). For his part, Costello says he'll never again play with the Attractions lineup, consisting of Nieve, Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas. He would gladly work, however with Nieve on a different project. As far as he's concerned, Brutal Youth was the cap on an Attractions trilogy that included This Year's Model and Blood & Chocolate.

"I'd like to find a way of making it all up again in a fresh way," he says. "I don't see the point in making another combo rock 'n' roll band record, because it requires me to go back and think the way I did at a certain time. I've done that for the last time when we did Brutal Youth.

"The rock 'n' roll end of that record is like going back to the blueprint of what me and the other three guys can do. But as I'm never going to play with those three guys in a band again ever, I don't see the point in getting other guys together. Rather, I'd like to get a whole new sound, and I hope Steve [Nieve] would be involved in that because we get along really well. I would like to try a whole new approach to rhythm and other accompanying instruments to go along with it.

"I'm not going to suddenly start singing in a different way utterly to prove a point — that would be self defeating. But I think maybe the music will play a different role, or maybe I will write words differently."

Costello says he's been working on new songs lately, some of them Nieve collaborations. What ends up on a new album remains to be seen. At this grand juncture in his life, he likes to focus on the fact that he's a well-rounded veteran artist, a self-taught musician who's done well.

It's hard to believe he once lacked the confidence to approach Dusty Springfield with a song he wrote for her, a song called "Just a Memory." Costello had a friend deliver the piece to Springfield, which she eventually recorded. Since then, Chet Baker, Johnny Cash, June Tabor, Roy Orbison, Roger McGuinn, Charles Brown, George Jones and Blur have covered songs from his 300-plus collection.

He's collaborated with artists like Paul McCartney, Brian Eno, T Bone Burnett, Bill Frisell, Bob Dylan and the Chieftains. He's produced acts like the Specials and the Pogues. He's working on compositions for classical singer Anne Sofie Von Otter with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm. There is no denying his significance within the popular music pantheon.

"Most classical and jazz musicians do their best work in their 40s. Most singers are in their best voice in their 40s, truth be told," he says, citing Frank Sinatra.

"I believe I have my best record ahead of me. I've written lots of songs that I know are good, but there must be more songs to sing, And I can certainly sing better than I used to. We'll see where it goes."


Tags: Burt BacharachPainted From MemorySteve NieveI'll Never Fall In Love AgainAustin PowersMy Aim Is TrueBrodsky QuartetThe Juliet LettersShakespeareThe AttractionsBrutal YouthNick Lowe1996 Costello & Nieve TourCostello & NieveLonely World TourQueen Elizabeth TheatreVancouverCouldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4I Want To VanishEveryday I Write The BookBruce ThomasPete ThomasThis Year's ModelBlood & ChocolateDusty SpringfieldJust A MemoryChet BakerJohnny CashJune TaborRoy OrbisonRoger McGuinnCharles BrownGeorge JonesBlurPaul McCartneyBrian EnoT Bone BurnettBill FrisellBob DylanThe ChieftainsThe SpecialsThe PoguesFrank SinatraAnne Sofie von OtterStockholmSwedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

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Vancouver Sun, May 20, 1999


Kerry Gold interviews Elvis Costello ahead of his concert with Steve Nieve, Monday, May 24, 1999, Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

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Photo by Sam Mircovich.
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1999-05-20 Vancouver Sun, Queue page 01.jpg


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