Bryan Ferry: The Face Interview

By James Truman

The Face, April 1985

THIS STORY IS ALREADY FAMILIAR: Bryan Ferry, born in Newcastle in 1945, the son of a miner, a young man whose big dreams and fascination with the Life of Art put him at odds with his upbringing, and propelled him forward. First, it was to Newcastle University, where he studied art under Richard Hamilton, the British Pop artist. Then it was to London, where his ambition to be a painter was finally eclipsed by his interest in music - he had already fronted a couple of part-time R&B cover bands in Newcastle. But the group he assembled in London was something quite different; in fact, there had never been one quite like it before.

Launched in early 1972, Roxy Music became the most important and influential band of the Seventies. Trashing the idea of art-derived rock as something portentious and humourless, the songs Ferry wrote for Roxy were witty, literate, original, innovative and driven by the ambiguity of being simultaneously heartfelt and ironic. That is, they were clever beyond belief. Similarly, Roxy's shows were a brilliant collage of glamour, spectacle and raise-the-roof bravura pop. The fact that half the audience came dressed as Bryan Ferry indicated that Roxy had struck another chord, one which hadn't been properly heard since Mod in the Sixties; the idea of style not just as a communal celebration but also as a liberation from the mundane, the grey world outside.

Perversely, the significance of this became most apparent in the bitterness with which the punks reacted to Ferry in 1977. Seen to be living the glamorous life which his image had hinted at, he was turned on, then reviled. The temper of the times demanded downward, not upward, mobility. Having broken up Roxy Music for the first time in 1975, he found himself in 1977 with the first commercial flop of his career ("The Bride Stripped Bare"), and a girlfriend (Jerry Hall) who publicly abandoned him for Mick Jagger. He doesn't deny that it was an unhappy period. However, he outlasted his critics and, as a new wave of bands began to remodel his early work, he enjoyed the last laugh. He relaunched Roxy Music in 1978, supplemented by an ever increasing number of hired musicians. Accordingly, the records which followed sounded slicker and more sophisticated, and they sold more copies than the early Roxy LPs. But it wasn't until the last, "Avalon", that they came to equal their quality. It's hard to say what "Avalon" was; the release of Ferry's new solo album might begin to make things clearer. Perhaps it's this: an intentionally mature and sophisticated music which is a long way from AOR, but at the same time doesn't try and condescend to the youth market. Bryan Ferry concedes that he has little interest in trying to align his work with fashion, or to relaunch himself as a fashion figure. If the work sounds different, it perhaps reflects his own situation as accurately as the early records.

When not working, he lives a quiet, almost reclusive life in the country, a couple of hours from London, with his wife Lucy and their young son Otis. Depending on the day and the circumstance, you could meet any one of three Bryan Ferrys. The off-duty Ferry is light-hearted, buoyant, gossipy and very funny. The one who's spent the best part of two years making this new LP is almost the reverse: nervous, fretful and prone to monumental bouts of self-doubt and irritation with himself. The third Bryan Ferry is the icily polite, non-commital, slightly wooden figure which often emerges from his interviews. For a master of mixed media, Ferry has been surprisingly unable, or unwilling, to use the media to his advantage. Unlike his contemporary, and sometime rival, David Bowie, who made media-manipulation part of his work, Ferry prefers not to talk about his music, often hedges on personal questions, and won't invent good quotes to fill in the gaps. "I just always felt that my work was more interesting than my personality," he says. "And I hoped that didn't need explanation." For this interview, his first in a while, he agreed to open up a little, cheerfully tolerating the fact that the interviewer is also no good at doing interviews. It took place in various locations by mid to late May. A single is released at the beginning of April.

What was the first thing, art-wise, which moved you?

I think it was the first time I saw a really strong presentation, which was a touring production of the opera La Boheme at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle. It had quite a strong effect on me, the whole thing of the bohemian life, the romantic life, the sacrifice for art. And beautiful melodies. I remember coming out into the street in my trench coat sniffling, at the tender age of 11 or something.

Which came first, your desire to be an artist, in the broadest sense, or to be a painter?

To be an artist, very much so. That quickly narrowed down to being a painter, and then, in my usual dreamy, roundabout kind of way, it took several years to channel that into becoming a musician.

What were your fantasies as a boy?

I think they changed several times a year. Adventure was what appealed to me, all those Boys Own things. I loved anything heroic. I was very interested in cycling, so at one point I was dreaming of being a professional racing cyclist and winning the Tour de France. Then I would want to be a great explorer or mountain climber. I started a mountaineering society at school, with some friends in the Lower Sixth. I loved the whole idea of nineteenth century mountain climbing, because the style used to be perfect - the baggy corduroy trousers and clay pipes, reading poetry on the slopes, sleeping in those tiny mountaineering tents. Everything always had to be just so for the magic to be there for me. I was always really shallow (laughs). But really, it was just the importance of doing something properly, perfectly.

What was your ideal of glamour back then?

Oh, fast cars, faster women, the usual kind of thing. I was always attracted to the glamorous side of art, glamorous lifestyles, and I don't necessarily mean posh lifestyles. Just things that were more interesting than where I came from. I kind of outgrew that very fast. I was always a natural oddball, not fitting in to what was around me. I felt I had to do something fairly unusual to become me, as it were.

Who was the earlier you, if it wasn't you?

Someone who always felt out of place. I suppose I still do now. But I felt like I was waiting for something, that I had a talent to offer and, without wanting to sound elitist, that I was different from most of the people I met from day to day.

How were you different?

One thing I suppose was that I'd always had very refined tastes considering the income bracket I came from. I've always been drawn in some sense to the finer things of life. Perhaps to some people that makes me a snooty person, but that was just what attracted me. Any success I might have had, as a musician, artist, tennis player, whatever, seemed to offer a nicer lifestyle than I would ordinarily have achieved. Also, I really wanted to experience lots of different things. If I'd been born very wealthy I think I'd have wanted to go very low-life, frequent opium dens and so on. As it was, having seen the inside of a thousand billiard halls, it was very intriguing to me to see the other side of the coin. Now, of course, I've seen everything and I'm terribly jaded and I'm ready to retire to my bed (laughs).

So it was very important to you to break out of your class background?

Yes, of course, I resented so much the idea of being born into a certain caste, like in India or something, and having to stay in that bracket forever. I hated the idea of being born with any fixed disadvantage. I wanted to be my own person, to create my own character. It became a very strong motive, to win that freedom of movement which would allow me to experience different kinds of life, to have the opportunity to change.

Do you think, in retrospect, that this was a useful motive?

Well, it's certainly something which a lot of English people have had, and it makes England unusual. Unfortunately, that kind of class warfare is also responsible for a lot of the present problems. It's very sad for someone like me because I feel pulled in different directions by it, being aware of my roots and at the same time being one of the so-called classless people who through a measure of success has been able to transcend that.

In the beginning, did you regard style as a means of transcending, or at least blurring, those British class distinctions?

No, not really. I thought of excellence as a way of getting out. I believed good art could always rise above something like that. When I was at university, the artists I admired like Picasso or Matisse, I never thought about what class they were, no one ever does. You just think what great work they did. Nevertheless, in the early years of Roxy Music I think a lot of your audience found a liberation in that use of style.
Perhaps. There was certainly a lot of fantasy and escape and dream about it. But I think the style aspect was over-exaggerated. It came to overshadow the content, when I wanted both to be equally important.

Did it come to feel like a burden, having a whole number of people identifying with you so strongly that they seemed to be living vicariously through you?

Well, it was good for the ego, I can't deny that. But I don't think I ever got too carried away by it. I saw it more as one of the by-products than as a mainspring of what I did… (suddenly looking embarassed). You know I don't really think it's my place to talk about this… (long pause). But yes, if it inspired people, working class people, to do something more creative than what they might have otherwise done, that's great. Then again, I never saw that as anything new. Tamla Motown and Stax had done the same thing. That was always about ghetto people breaking out, and I always saw myself a little bit as a white version of that.

How did it feel the first time you looked out into the audience and saw 20 clones of yourself?

I loved all that. It was great. Having always been a somewhat reluctant performer, I would always be looking for anything that might lighten the load. That was just like the fun aspect of playing.

If you hadn't already been Bryan Ferry, do you think you'd have been a Bryan Ferry clone?

Doubtful. I'd have been more interested if Bryan Ferry had been killed in a plane crash. I was never really into that sort of fandom, except from afar. I was always drawn to something much more removed, starker, like black American music, Motown, Billie Holliday, things like that.

Looking back again, how hard was it for you to deal with punk rock, and the fact that you were supplanted as the headline-grabber, the hot item?

I think I vaguely enjoyed the fact that it was so different from what I was doing. I suppose had I been philosophical I might have rolled around in the grass tearing my hair out. Oh no! Some new people have made records! But I don't think I really minded at all. It was more difficult when later waves came along and my early style of music was resurrected and came back into vogue. I was always being asked what I thought of them, and that was hard to deal with. Sometimes you felt they were a little too clone-like, and it would make me feel that maybe I'd given away too much information. Not only in the music but in interviews, where I'd named my heroes and particular tastes. I could recognise people writing songs in the same way, using those same reference points. It meant that I had to push ahead faster than I might have liked, leave ground behind that I might have wanted to explore a little longer.

Whenever people have asked you what you think of Duran Duran or Japan, you've become very evasive. Obviously no one likes being copied. Why don't you say so?

I just think it would make me look cheap. I'm as human and small-minded as the next person, but it's not a characteristic I like to see emerging. You don't want to publicise your worst side.

Are you interested in other people's music?

Possibly not enough. I don't listen much at all to what's new. I just turn on the radio when I'm in the car or doing the washing up.

Do you do the washing up?

(Laughing) It's been known.

You have said that you've never thought of yourself as a pop star. Is that a put-on?

No, I've always thought of myself as an artist rather than a personality. I'm not really interested in being that kind of rock star personality, I never have been. It's my work that I'm proud of. The problem is that I've always seen it as being slightly esoteric, and to get it across I maybe did things that I might otherwise not have done. Not publicity stunts, as such, but doing too many interviews, posing for too many pictures, which I think dulled my credibility in some areas, especially in Britain. I always thought my work was too strange, too off the wall, to ever be a real popular force, so I would do things to help it, even though I've always dreaded doing interviews. But if you've spent over a year making a record, as I have with this one, and promoting it can double your sales, you're left with no real choice. You think, what am I proving by not doing this interview for the Daily Mirror or The Sun? So I'll do it and be completely freaked out by what they've written, but in the end it might help me sell twice as many records.

Why are you so uncomfortable doing interviews?

The whole thing of talking about my work has always left me feeling uneasy or embarassed, as if I didn't want to talk about it with myself, never mind anyone else . I've always been reluctant t analyse what I do, it takes the pleasure out of it.

Do you feel there's a big gap between other people's perceptions of you and your own perception of you?

I don't really know if I have a public self anymore. I've reduced it to such a small dimension over the past few years. It certainly feels more to me like that. I'm not in the public eye, I turn down everything that's offered. I'm really as much a recluse as it's possible to be in this business. That seems a strange thing to say in the flashy, success-obsessed Eighties.
It just feels natural. I suppose all that stuff can be fun. It really depends on how drunk you are. I've generally enjoyed it more outside of England. This is such a small country that if you're on Top Of The Pops, the next day everyone points at you in the street, which is a real nightmare. But it's got better here over the last few years. The people who recognise me now know me for my work rather than for just being on TV, which is how I've always wanted it to be.

But can't the limelight become addictive, in that Sunset Boulevard kind of way, where you come to dread the possibility of no longer having it?

It's difficult for me to say, because as a rule I've always been relieved when I haven't been recognised. Anyway, I don't feel I've quite yet reached Gloria Swanson's stage of life (laughs).

Do you find it harder to make records as you grow older?

Yes. The thing I most miss from the early days is that driving enthusiasm, which comes from being younger and a more pointed individual. It's something that's very difficult to explain, especially to younger people, because when you're young and you have that enthusiasm and ambition you don't ever imagine not having it. I still respect what I do as art, I'm afraid, which is why I wait so long for that genuine enthusiasm to come, otherwise the work wouldn't mean anything. Unfortunately it means that you spend 18 months making a record.

Does it worry you that you're working in such a youth dominated medium?

I always try and stifle my apprehension about that, by remembering that the artists I've most admired often did their best work when they were old codgers. But my area of operation - modern music - is a strange one. No one really understands what it is, there aren't any properly drawn-out parameters. A lot of people in this country, those who are really square, think it's done purely by and for people who are between 18 and 25. But I really didn't start doing it until I was 25, and I still like to think that some of my best work is yet to come. In a way, I feel up to now I've only been learning my trade. So it becomes a very funny kind of role you play, where you are comparing yourself, in the popular eye, with people who are only half your age.

Do you feel in competition with them?

I am quite a competitive person, but it's generally directed towards people I'm working with. That's why it suited me to be in a group, where I had other talents to fight, as it were, to make me assert myself. A lot of my best work came from the urge to improve upon something which someone else had played or suggested. I remember with Roxy, one of the others would play something that I hated, or found really irritating, and it would make me rush out to a piano and come up with some of my best ideas. The problem with any solo album I've done has been the lack of that friction. Most of the time I'm just admiring the playing of the people I invited to be on the record. It becomes a very complicated process of adapting other people's talents to my own needs. Great things have come out of it on this record, but it's made for a rather long, drawn-out process.

Why did you decide to break up Roxy Music?

There were too many conflicts, really. Not musical so much as personality conflicts. Before I did "Avalon", and while I was doing it, it felt to me that it had gone as far as it could go. It was no longer useful or stimulating to have that kind of friction.

So instead of being an inspirational pain in the arse the others had become a pain in the arse?

Well, I just wanted to work without that irritation. To keep it together just as a business name didn't seem enough reason.

The early Roxy records were so attuned to their time and place. This new record, like "Avalon", is quite the opposite, sort of timeless and placeless. Was that the intention?

Yes, I think so. I just feel that now the people who are going to buy my records will do so because of the music, not because I'm wearing the latest haircut or something. I'm really selling a completely different kind of commodity, experience as opposed to naivety. Which is another reason why it's taken so long. You can make great records quickly, and for peanuts, but I don't think people expect that from me now; I don't expect that from myself. I did that with the first Roxy album, I now work in a different way. It's always been a source of frustration to me when people say "Oh I loved your first album", implying why don't you make them like that anymore. For me that would be ridiculous, it just wouldn't be true.

So how would you like this record to be received?

Hopefully, I'm selling a beautiful, intriguing piece of music, and hopefully there's always a place for that. The record has cost a lot to make.

Do you resent the pressure that imposes on you for it to be a hit?

Obviously. That's one of the irritating things about music: as soon as you step into a recording studio you're having to pay £150 an hour or something. I'm always irritated when I hear about people who've written and recorded an album in three weeks, and then it goes straight to number one. I often wish I could do that, but I can't.

Which, honestly, is more rewarding: to make records that really affect people, or to make records which sell in millions?

It's great to have both of course. But, genuinely, for me, I think it's much more important to have the opinions of a respected few. You know, it's supposed to be a piece of plastic that people buy and then throw away and forget about in three months time, so it's wonderful when someone comes up to you and says your records changed my life, man, whatever. And you think Christ, that's worth a lot more than a royalty statement. That's the sort of thing that makes me hold my head high.

What if there was no royalty statement at all?

Then I would probably have a very different answer (laughs)

Do you consider that you work hard?

That's difficult to answer. I often tend to be a little too dreamy and lazy, but then I also wonder if laziness isn't just part of what I do. I always regret not learning the guitar, for instance. I think in terms of guitar a lot, but I never applied myself to learning it. But if I had got down to it, it might have prevented something more interesting from happening. Perhaps I'd have become an incredibly boring guitarist, and just made boring guitar records. I certainly find it hard getting down to work, because nothing ever comes easy. I can't sit on an aeroplane and write a good song, and once I've started a piece of music the road from concept to completion has always been incredibly tortuous for me. But once I've got going, that kind of Northern work ethic surfaces and I work quite obsessively hard. Every record I've made I've suffered through. In a way that's why I've sometimes been a little self-righteous about it, especially when people were criticising me for apparently leading some frivolous, jet-set life. I know how much work I've put into everything I've done.

Those criticisms hurt?

Yes. I've always been a proud person, so when people take cheap shots it does hurt. I suppose they think it's fair enough, you're a public figure, you should be able to take it. It's a complicated thing.

What kinds of things make you laugh?

Anyone's misfortunes but my own! (roars) No…good stories, strange characters, eccentricity. I'm a good student of all human life.

How old were you first fell in love? (sic)

I think 17. I seem to remember it ended in tears.

That didn't seem to discourage you.

It's just a fascinating experience, being in love. I've always found it a good leveller.

Several of your past girlfriends have sold their stories to the papers. Now Jerry Hall's memoirs are about to be published. How do you feel about this?

I just think it's a really tacky thing to do. I was sent an early proof of her book, to see if I would sue, I suppose. There were no glaring libels - it had obviously been carefully read by lawyers - but the truth was terribly distorted in several places.

Has she told the whole truth about herself?

I didn't read it too carefully. I think there are some omissions.

Such as?

Well… there was the time she went off to meet the Shah of Iran. It seems he had quite a thing for her. I later found out that his secret police were watching the house where we were living… But I'd really prefer not to go into all that.

Will you ever write your own story?

No, I don't think so. Certainly not in that way.

If you did, what would you title the chapter dealing with the Jerry Hall period?

Oh, something like… "All that Glitters is not Gold." You know, people who mention that name always look at me as if I was going to be terribly upset, but anyone who knows her and knows my wife would realise how lucky I am, being involved with a real person.

Was "Trash" on "Manifesto" written about Jerry Hall?

No. One line in various songs might refer to a particular person, but I've never written a song like that.

How would you describe your personality?

Oh dear. I suppose there's a strange mixture in me, of on the one hand being moody, introspective, brooding, always thinking about work, and on the other hand dashing around madly, desperate to get hold of some new inspiration and excitement, of wanting to try everything.

How does it feel to be a father?

It was something I never quite envisaged myself doing, being so self-possessed and self-interested. But I'm very glad it's happened. I'm sure I'm probably a more wonderful human being. But I've always found it boring to read people talking about their children, so I don't want to start now.

Where will you send your son to school?

I put him down for public school, but I'm not sure. I'd like him to go to the kind of grammar school I went to, but they don't seem to exist anymore. It's difficult to know what to do. People who go through the British public schools either come out as dreadful Hooray Henry types, or with that amazing self-confidence to do anything. It was something I never had, that degree of confidence.

Do you ever feel nostalgic for those early days of Roxy?

I recently saw the clip from "Remake/Remodel", which was the earliest film thing we did. It makes you feel slightly wistful, wishing one's youth was back. But no, I don't dwell on it much.

How do you feel when you see the people in Duran Duran, wearing the Antony Price suits, with the glamorous girlfriends, doing the kind of international circuit? Is it like déjà vu?

I understand it perfectly well. They've become very famous and very glamorous and they suddenly find England a small area to work in. It's a natural thing. If you become a famous person you become intrigued with meeting other famous people, especially those whom you might have admired before but never got the chance to meet. After that, you either carry on wanting to meet famous people or you decide one day that you'd be just as happy never to meet another famous person.

Where do you stand now?

Nowhere at all, really. I tend to be fairly isolated when I'm working, which I've been doing for most of the past two years, so I haven't been socialising at all. But really, it just comes down to finding people you like, who interest you, regardless of what they do, and spending time with them.

Do you think it's ultimately disillusioning to live out one's fantasies?

You find you can't buy happiness, that's the corny truth of the matter. When you're young you might think `I want to be rich and go on a yacht' and then you do and you find you're still the same, you're still carrying the same general luggage. I don't think your mind changes, and your heart certainly doesn't change. Having lived in various different places, and having known various groups of people, I've found that I really don't fit in with any of them. It's a strange dawning, because you've always imagined that one day you're suddenly going to fit in somewhere.

If you ever decided to give up music in favour of something else, what would the something else be?

The lot of the farmer is, I think, one of the nicest things. I've always quite liked the idea of being a farmer.

Last Updated: 9 April 2008