Behind The Veil

In 1980, to coincide with the release of Never For Ever, future Prog writer Kris Needs approached a young Kate Bush for an interview.

- Kris Needs

She took some convincing, but eventually agreed to not just one, but three, all of which took place at various intervals during the height of her commercial success. In this personal account, Needs recalls some of the most in-depth discussions that took place during the artist's formative decade.

In retrospect, my decision to stick Kate Bush on the cover of ZigZag magazine in 1980 was an act of sheer punk-style defiance; so unlikely she had to be persuaded it wasn’t going to be another stitch-up before agreeing to do our interview. Yet once the ice was broken, it led to further encounters that Kate described as the most in-depth interviews of her formative decade.

Launched by Pete Frame in 1969 as an underground fanzine, ZigZag had become the UK’s first serious music monthly by the time he appointed me as editor in 1977. Punk’s revolution was in full swing and I reported from the frontline on The Clash, Ramones, Siouxsie And The Banshees, etc. In that era dominated by strict musical categories, punk soon became a blinkered parody of itself, motivating Johnny Rotten to voice his love of Peter Hammill and soon Kate Bush.

Coming from the John Peel school of non-existent musical barriers, I felt a fearlessly idiosyncratic talent like Kate deserved support rather than the disparaging treatment she was getting from the music papers. Knowing I’d ZI attract abuse from punkier elements, I found her precociously vivid talent so fascinating I requested an interview. Predictably, she was sceptical that a punk-associated publication would want to interview her, needing to be convinced of my honourable intentions. Finally, I won a slot after the Daily Express on the Friday afternoon following Never For Ever’s September 8 release.