Uber Pop Weekend: Carol Decker – T’Pau – Uber Pop Interview Exclusive
Written by Dave Prince
Saturday, 04 April 2015 04:00
Hot on the heels of their 25th Anniversary Tour in 2013 T’Pau and Carol Decker are back in 2015 with a fantastic new album in the form of ‘Pleasure & Pain’ and, although the tour has recently had to be re-scheduled due to ill-health, Carol and co-founder/writer Ronnie Rogers are firing on all cylinders.
For the people who only know of T’Pau as the band with a few hits in the ’80s, they were so much more than that, especially during their initial run back in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Whilst many had labelled them a pop band after the colossal hits of ‘Heart and Soul’ and ‘China In Your Hand’ they actually released two more fantastic slabs of AOR/Pop Rock goodness in the form 1988’s ‘Rage’ and 1991’s ‘The Promise’. ‘Pleasure & Pain’ continues the early vision of those albums but bringing it bang up to date with fantastic production. Songs such as first single ‘Nowhere’, ‘Demolition Man’, ‘Last Temptation’, ‘I Think About You’ and ‘One Lesson In Love’ are up there with the band’s best and live some of these songs sounded immense.
We recently caught up with Carol to ask a few questions to head up our very first Uber Pop Weekend!
Carol, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions and I hope that you are starting to feel better. Listening to ‘Pleasure & Pain’ it strikes me that the band are as relevant today as they were when you started out. The great songs obviously helped, but was it a conscious thing to make an album that holds its own with today’s music yet retains all the ‘classic’ elements of the band?
Thanks for that comment and, yes, we decided very much to play to our strengths – strong melodic rock with genuine T’Pau DNA running through it. I have down the years ‘pissed in the wind’ a little with my writing. Our style of music definitely fell out of fashion, so I have tried different styles with different writers but in the end you can only do what is authentic and stand or fall by what you do instinctively. We are very proud of ‘Pleasure & Pain’ and did have really good feeling as the tracks went down.
Thinking back to how and when you began, could you imagine back then still releasing and playing music to sold out crowds along with the occasional festival slot?
No! I mean, I never had a strategy, I wish I did! I just always hoped for the best and took each step on as it came and hoped for another one! We obviously had a great handful of years back in the day and then it all went a bit quiet to say the least, so to be performing and writing again almost 30 years after our auspicious start is quite remarkable, and a great testament to the good songs that Ron Rogers and I have written. It all comes down to the music in the end.
Are you happy with the reaction to the new album, ‘Pleasure & Pain’?
We are very happy. The reaction far exceeded our hopes and dreams even though, as I said earlier, we were already very pleased with the tracks as they went down and knew it was a really good record – we had modest hopes. We were, to be honest, very realistic/pessimistic about how long ago our big hits were, how many people may still interested in us and where I sit as a bankable artist. Although the music business is just that, a business ,we, the creative people within it never base our decisions on logic. It’s just something we have to do, so we do it and then hope for the best. Ron and I recorded and financed ‘Pleasure & Pain’ ourselves so we had a lot riding on it.
For me T’Pau have always been more of a rock band, up there with Heart and Romeo’s Daughter, yet the rock press tended to stay away from you. Where do you see your place in musical history, and as you are continuing to release new music, how do you feel playing the ’80s festivals?
I do think that we are an eclectic rock/pop band but I admit that handle sounds like a clumsy mouthful. I like pop songs and I like power chords! The rock press initially showed interest. I was on the cover of Melody Maker and Kerrang! as well as Smash Hits. We covered a broad spectrum and looking back I think it may have been a mistake not to choose a side. Back then we were very influenced by our Label/Manager/PR advice which was DO EVERYTHING! I know Ronnie was concerned at the time that we were trashing the band’s credibility with all the ‘poppier’ coverage. I was just always keen for more and was easily talked into things.
I think our place in musical history is distilled down to one song now if I’m brutally honest but then we never set out to change the musical world nor were we part of a big cultural change like New Wave or Punk or New Romantics, so to be remembered at all is a feat, I guess.
I really don’t mind playing the ’80s festivals, they are great fun and I don’t see them as mutually exclusive to new material or our own independent gigs. The ’80s was a very creative era and it’s a joy to play alongside my peers and listen to their sets later; I enjoy that as much as the crowd do.
Having seen you at the recent Cardiff show, which I thought was brilliant, albeit with a few sound and stage space niggles, how were the dates that you have played recently compared with the shows two years ago on the 25th anniversary tour, and also to the original band?
Cardiff was a blast, bit tricky sometimes. I love grungy rock clubs, they remind me of how I started out and the crowds are full of life. We have done a mix of theatres and clubs on the P & P tour whereas on the #tpau25live tour it was almost all theatres. They are rather staid as they are seated and the audience have to stay in their seats so that puts people off standing up because of the people behind them, they can’t take pics. I prefer the atmosphere in the standing venues.
The original line-up were great, we were young, dumb and full of cum as they say! We had a riot roaming the world in a successful rock band and we shared something very special, but that was so long ago. I have worked with some incredible musicians down the years. I have now worked with my drummer Dave Hattee for 17 years and he knows exactly how I work on stage. I can’t really compare them, musically each individual has their virtues so it wouldn’t be fair. The only thing I will say is some of the original line-up were not that easy to deal with and now I have such a laugh with my band, whoever they are at the time!
At the show you said that ‘Demolition Man’ was one of your mother’s favourite songs, which you played to her before she passed away. Were there any other songs from the new album that she listened to, and what did she think of you pairing up again with Ronnie?
Mum usually loved all our songs. She did love ‘Demolition Man’ but also I got to play ‘Nowhere’, our first single from the album to her in hospital and she thought it was fantastic. I gave her some tracks on my iPhone to listen to on headphones in intensive care and I am so happy she not only got hear them but had a little sing along. She was delighted that Ronnie and I had teamed up again and had long hoped for that day.
With the band having amassed such a great back catalogue is there any chance of a anthology/rarities & B-sides release in the future, along with the long Out Of Print VHS releases?
You’d have to nag Universal Music about that as they own all that stuff. We are working on a deluxe edition of ‘Bridge of Spies’ with them at the moment that hopefully will have some interesting tracks on it.
Having appeared as a part of various reality TV shows such as Hit Me, Baby, One More Time and Just The Two Of Us throughout the noughties, what are your memories of those shows and would you go on any other kind of reality show now?
I had fun on them all: I got to sing on primetime TV again and duet with Beverley Knight and Tony Christie. It gave me an opportunity to remind people that I still have good set of pipes! All good.
With you having to reschedule a few dates for October, can the fans expect a tour to be booked around those dates or will they be lone dates?
We have just also rescheduled The Jazz Cafe, Camden, London for Saturday 25th July also part of the P & P tour. But this and the October dates are the only ones due to diary issues. I got the flu, that turned into bronchitis, I took to my bed for nine days but had done some damage with all the continual coughing and then as I went back on the road thinking I was on the mend I further damaged my vocal chords and they are swollen and raspy. Totally bummed about it all for all concerned.
Having taken a somewhat DIY route to finance the new album would you consider going down the Pledge/Kickstarter route?
Don’t know, have not really look into it, maybe we should!
Hopefully this wasn’t too taxing and once again I thank you for you time in answering these questions.
T’Pau will team up with Nik Kershaw and Go West for an about-to-be announced UK tour. Get more info at: https://www.facebook.com/TpauCarolDecker
