Record Mirror, March 8, 1986

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Mike Gardner ‘King Of America’ sees Elvis Costello return to form, reverts to his real name – Declan Macmanus – and put the troubles of the last year behind him. In his first major rm interview for a number of years, Costello, sorry Macmanus, talks about his music, Live Aid, Red Wedge and his name. Wrestling with Macmanus: Mike Gardner Declan in colour: Chalkie Davies Declan Patrick Aloysius Macmanus looks far from being the washed up wreck – weighed down with the problems of a turbulent lovelife, alcohol excess and a writer’s block – portrayed in certain sensationalist quarters. In fact, the figure sipping his umpteenth cup of coffee during an arduous round of interviews looks a picture of health. But there’s no doubt that he’s created a bit of a stir by dropping his monicker of the last nine years – Elvis Costello – for his real name. On the sleeve of his new album, ‘King Of America’ he refers to himself as the Tiny Hands of Concrete, or Declan Macmanus. Even the Costello Show identity was an enforced compromise, with the singer preferring to call the ensemble the Macmanus Gang. There were other upheavals . His 10 years marriage ended in the divorce courts. He became almost inseparable from Pogues’ bassist Caitlin O’Riordan. His usual backing band of Pete and Bruce Thomas and Steve Nieve – the Attractions – were restricted to only one track on ‘King Of America’. The rest was played by various combinations of TCB – James Burton (guitar), Jerry Scheff (bass) and Ron Tutt (drums), best known for playing behind Elvis Presley in 1968 and country rock pioneer Gram Parsons – plus veteran jazz men Ray Brown and Earl Palmer, and various members of Tom Waits’ and Hall and Oates’ bands among others. Costello watchers also drew conclusions from the title of his last album ‘Goodbye Cruel World’ and the fact that his only album release last year was a Telstar TV advertised compilation. But ‘King Of America’, produced by good friend T-Bone Burnett, has proved to be a spectacular return to form, which equals, if not surpasses, the excellence of ‘Imperial Bedroom’. Those expecting the man – now 31 – to have mellowed from the brash and caustic persons of recent years, will be disappointed. His literate dissections of human foibles are still as effective, if not more so. Personally, he’ll admit no more than the fact that all his previous confusions are clearer and he’s never been happier, refusing to comment further on his relationship with Ms O’Riordan and his new found stability. But he is forthright on his position within the pop market. “I’m just really consistent. I’m not going to be falsely modest. I’m just better than a lot of people at keeping a clearer view of what I’m doing. Others don’t work hard enough at it. “ Why have you become a born-again Declan Macmanus? It isn’t supposed to be headline news. It’s just something I did for personal reasons, most of all. It also has the objective of reminding people that there’s a human being behind what ever they’ve come to expect or assume is Elvis Costello. Obviously I’ll continue to be known under that name to a lot of people – especially my record company. The name and image is very potent and it ties me to a time very acutely. I feel it’s meant to be a big statement in the way it’s been reported in other quarters, as some sort of artistic schizophrenia or even personal schizophrenia. It’s nothing as sinister as that. It’s a very simple decision. After the acknowledged triumph of the “Imperial Bedroom” album, you seemed to be treading water with the last two releases, and have been publically dissatisfied with them. What happened? During the last two years, I made records which owed more to the production sounds of that year, with a currently successful production team – Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley. ‘Punch The Clock’, the first one, was quite successful in the sense that it was the record we intended to make. It was a brash, quite aggressive sounding modern pop-record, with a couple of substantial songs and a considerable amount of confections. It’s ultimately not as satisfying as some of my other albums, but it was the record I intended to make. 'Goodbye Cruel World' - my last album - was a conflict between that way of making records and something akin to to this album, only it went horribly wrong and got terribly confused. That's the only record of mine which I think is a bad album. I needed to clear the way to make a better record. Stopping playing live was one of the better things I did. I'd worked for eight years with only three weeks holiday. Not touring stopped me having to consider the massive amount of words, chords and tunes that I had to memorise just to play a show. That left me more time and a lot more brain power to think about these songs. Remainder of article to follow.... << >> Record Mirror, March 8, 1986 Mike Gardner interviews Elvis Costello regarding his change of name and Imperial Bedroom. Images Cover and contents page.

External links

• Wikipedia: Record Mirror