Il y a de cela 10 jours, nous vous communiquions en AVANT-PREMIERE sur Yellow-sub.net une interview de Paul McCartney. Ce n’est qu’aujourd’hui que cette dernière est diffusée officiellement sur son site. Nous vous la retranscrivons ci-après :
As Paul McCartney prepares to launch his first European tour in 10 years next month (March) he talks of his motivation to get back on the road.
Q: When you went to make your recent studio album Driving Rain was the idea of doing this tour already in your head?
P: No, not really. What happens with me is it’s just always in order and it’s just one step at a time. So it was like: I had enough songs for an album, so then it’s like ‘OK, let’s look around to record it’. My producer, David Kahne, then said ‘Shall we do it with a band or do you just want to multi-track yourself?’
I said ‘Probably with a band, but if it doesn’t work out we’ll multi-track’.
So it was just one step at a time; we got out to Los Angeles; did the album and realised that because the album was going a little bit live and the basis of it was sort of live playing, then it would be interesting to take this out on the road and to work with this band. So that was really about as far as I got. And then we did a benefit concert for Adopt A Minefield in LA, just a little one-off, and I was working with the band there. That worked out OK, so then that was like the first little toe in the water – did I fancy playing live again? But that was like a benefit audience, so I still didn’t know.
And then, after September 11th, the Madison Square Garden concert came up, which again still wasn’t a straightforward audience, there was still a benefit aspect, but it was getting nearer. So I then said to myself and to people who were asking me ‘Well, this will be the toe in the water for me’. Fairly big toe in a fairly big pool of water! But if I like and enjoy this evening then I’ll probably enjoy touring’. So it was all these singular events that culminated in the idea that it would be good to get back out on the road.
Q: What sort of numbers are you thinking of doing?
P: When you go out on tour my first thought is always ‘What would the audience like to see and hear?’ Because I know that if I go to see the Stones in concert I really hope they are going to do ‘Satisfaction’ and I do hope they’ll do ‘Honky Tonk Women’ and ‘Jumping Jack Flash’, and I’d be disappointed if they left them out.
So with me that means doing some Beatles stuff, some Wings stuff, some more recent stuff and the Driving Rain album. I kind of weigh the two together. I’d like to play the recent album but what we’re thinking of is doing some songs off that, but then also treating the whole tour as a kind of tour of my songs, basically me doing my stuff. So it’s representative of the whole span. I basically came up with a set list in my head, thinking ‘What would I like to do and what might people like me to do?’
We were thinking of doing is a prelude, a pre-show thing, so that you come in and the atmosphere is a bit like a club – so you’ll have pools of light playing over the audience and there might be incense burners and people wandering through the audience who are a little bit theatrical. The idea is that once you’ve got the audience in for this atmosphere to grow, take the lights down and build towards this more clubbier thing. I was on holiday in India and I saw some crazy traditional dancers in wild costumes that reminded me a bit of pantomine and Punch and Judy; reminded me of the ancient origins of that. I like this idea of a pre-show, maybe 20 minutes of that. Maybe w’re going to use The Fireman, some Fireman music. I thought of getting Youth and the Fireman to do some special mixes, and then it’ll grow in intensity.
And then I’ll come on – and anything can happen. I’m basically looking at doing my hits, with a few songs from Driving Rain, and using the big screens we’ve got in a hopefully unusual way. It’s what I think an audience would basically want – an average audience; not a Wings audience and not my ‘Flaming Pie’ audience, or a Beatles audience. And the other thing is that it’s kind of what I fancy; I like doing numbers that go down. I don’t like struggling. But I am looking forward to it and hopefully I won’t get to play out this nightmare that I have and which I particularly used to get it in The Beatles, where I’m playing to an audience and they start walking out. And, in my nightmare, I’m thinking ‘Do ‘Long Tall Sally” – and they’re still walking out. So I think ‘Do ‘Yesterday’! And they’re still walking out, in droves….it’s a performer’s nightmare. But, as I say, hopefully I won’t get to experience it.
I don’t necessarily have to do the same numbers every night, if I can I’ll change it around I might. But knowing me I do get set in a pattern because I just look to see what goes down well. I’m the opposite of Dylan; I heard that one night Dylan was told by some guy ‘Oh man, ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ went down great tonight’ and Dylan said ‘Right, we’ll cut it tomorrow night’. I love the courage of that, but it’s not me; I tend to go ‘Right, keep it in’.
Q: What do you get from touring?
P: The excitement of contact with people, just that feedback, that human feedback. If you’re lucky you get some really great moments in your life; either because you’re soaring because of your performance, you’re singing good or playing good. For instance, I’ve still got a clear recollection from the 1989 tour of a guy in the crowd with a black beard and his daughter with long black hair, he was sort of tall and he had his arm around her, and they were standing in front of me and the pair of them were crying during ‘Let It Be’. It’s pretty moving, that. So you get that kind of thing, just seeing people moved by what you’re doing. And seeing people bopping, I like that. So you get a feedback; when there’s enough people bopping and enjoying themselves and there’s a bunch of lights flashing around, and music. A combination of that is quite thrilling.
Q: It seems like you always like to try new things on a stage, has anything you’ve done recently had any influence on what you may do in this show?
P: I’ve been doing these poetry readings, and that experience put an idea into my head for this show. It’s been unusual for me, those readings – it’s just been me with an audience, just chatting and reading. I quite like that there’s a lot of freedom to it – you can go anywhere and you don’t have to check with the band that they know where you’re going to go; there is a sort of wild horse aspect to the poetry readings that I enjoy; to that; you find yourself making up little bits and pieces. So that gave me ideas for the concert set, and it’s playede out well.
Q: How did you come across the guys in the band?
P: It was very fated, really. I’ve had a lot of things in my life that have just happened. I’m a bit of a believer in that. So when I was going to work on recording Driving Rain with David Kahne, literally just the week before he said ‘How do you want to do this?’. I said ‘Well, I’ll just show up. I’ll think of a song and we’ll do it’. He said ‘Shall we have some musicians there?’ It was literally that. I said ‘That’s a good idea’. He asked if I had any thoughts of people I wanted to have there and I said ‘Not really, no, I don’t know too many people in LA’. He said he knew some good people and he made some suggestions.
As I say, I like trying things like that. If you look at what I’ve done there’s always been a bit of a risk thing. People say to me I’m a bit foolhardy sometimes. People have said that – ‘Why are you going on the road? Now you’ve got all that Beatles reputation, why mess it up? Just leave it, man; retire, go off somewhere’. But I like it too much and I do find myself just risking, just for like the fun of it really.
Anyway, David asked me if he could suggest some people for the album and so on the Monday morning of the start of the session he had three guys there, two of whom are going to be on the tour. Abe Laboriel Jnr., who is a really good drummer who’s been recently working with Sting. He’s a nice guy and a drummer who can turn his hand to anything; you don’t throw him if you say ‘What about electric tablas?’ He doesn’t go ‘Oh, I’m not into that, man’. There’s none of that attitude. He just goes over to his kit and does it. He leaps on ideas, he’s very enthusiastic. And he’s a great drummer. He and I did the drumming on the Driving Rain album; he did most of it and I did one or two bits. Again, he was cool enough to not mind me drumming on some bits.
Rusty Anderson is the guitar player who I also worked with on the album. He and I shared the guitar work on that, again him doing most of it. He’s an LA guy who dresses a bit retro, which I kind of like. He reminds me of people I knew. He’s got the long hair. Again, he’s a very nice guy. Like I say, he likes vintage clothes and I admire his taste. The funny thing about Rusty is that he went to his doctor for a check up and the doctor said that the only thing wrong was that he had too much iron in his blood. He still has it; when we were in New Orleans he was saying ‘I can’t have that spinach……’
Then we have Wix from the old tour. Wix is going to play keyboards. He’s sort of Musical Director. Actually, all the guys are kind of at that level, I think they’ve all done that kind of thing; so it’s a pretty sort of high level band.
And then there’s me mainly on bass. I’ll do bass, piano, guitar; mainly accoustic, a little bit of electric.
And then we have Brian Ray, who I only worked with at the Super Bowl concert before starting this tour last year. Brian’s a great guitarist who can also double on bass when I go on piano or guitar. Like Rusty, he likes to leap around the stage – which the crowds seem to enjoy – and like everyone in this band he’s got an effervescent enthusiasm for the show. They’re a good vibe, this band.
Q: How have the Driving Rain songs worked live?
P: Well, I think. It’s always difficult – everyone who has ever played on stage knows that there’s this difficult thing when you’re foisting your new material on the audience. Unless you’re Pink Floyd – and then you just do your album. But if it’s me or the Stones or The Beatles, especially when you’ve got a back catalogue, people do want to hear some of that. With me, people would probably be a bit disappointed if they didn’t hear ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ or ‘Let It Be’, because they associate me with that so much. If you ask people what they want me to do, ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ will probably be in there.
So it’s always difficult to say I’d like to do the whole of my recent album. I would actually love to my recent album, but I’m a bit aware that it might not be the favourite show for the people who pay the money. So I take that into account. But there are songs on the album like ‘About You’, we played it live, the record is virtually live, and there are songs on there like that which would be really good live. But I hope to do four or five of them, do it in a block, and I’d like people to go away and say they liked the new songs and so they check out Driving Rain.
Q: Are you interested in re-inventing some of the old songs or do you think you’ve pretty much set them in stone and that’s the way you’ll do them?
P: I’m interested in it, yeah. Again, I’m a bit ambivalent about whether the audience wants me to do it. Dylan, for instance, reinvents them like every night. I kind of like that. Not everyone does, but I think it’s kind of courageous and interesting – and probably keeps him interested. So there are a couple of numbers that I hope we might be able to re-invent. I tend to try do them like the record; I always have done. The Beatles always tried to do them like the record, assuming that people come and say ‘Oh, I love that one, but they did it funny’. It depends on where you view your audience, and I take quite an average view and try please the average punter. But I’ve got a fancy for ‘Hello Goodbye’, it’s got like a modern beat. ‘Coming Up’ could be a bit updated; there’s certain ones that could take it. And the band could do it, so it might be interesting.
Q: People are going to ask if this is your last tour?
P: Not as far as I’m concerned. It’s always tempting to say ‘yeah’ and get them all to come, like what a lot of other people do. But I never think it’s my last tour. I’ve always said I’ll be wheeled on when I’m 90. And that might be a dreadful prediction that comes true!’ You age, but you don’t think you do. I certainly don’t; I’m still sort of very enthusiastic and very energetic. Thank God. I think it’s a blessing really; that I still fancy it and I’m still able to do it. The first number I did at The Concert For New York was ‘I’m Down’ and I didn’t think about it. I just thought ‘Yeah, I’ll do ‘I’m Down’. It was only afterwards that I thought ‘That was like 30 years, if it’s a day, when I recorded that – and I did it in the same key! At the same speed!’ I mean you’d think you’d say to yourself ‘No, no, no – slower, and lower’.
Afterwards I thought ‘Bloody hell!’. I just expect to be able to do it – I don’t know, but that might be a bit of a secret. It’s certainly a mind-set; they do talk about the power of positive thought. I may be just stupid in thinking I can do it, but I don’t knock that.
Q: Apart from the actual performing, how do you view the idea of actually going out on tour, the schlepping?
P: I don’t know. The worst moment is when you’re in a hotel somewhere that’s not really brilliant, and you’re getting a bit bored and you’re thinking ‘I’ve got horses at home where I live, and I don’t half love going in the woods on them’. You know, you think ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ But everyone gets that, that’s touring. But having said that, we try to get it at a good enough level and have enough days off to enjoy it. I don’t work like I used to; with The Beatles it used to be every day of the year. But hopefully now there’s enough days off so that you can go and do the leisurely things and you can keep an interest in just gigging. I’ll tell you at the end of the tour.