Joan Armatrading Tells Us How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean: 13th Floor MusicTalk Interview

More than 50 years after her debut album and Joan Armatrading shows no sign of slowing down. She’s just released a new album, How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean, this past November after writing her first classical piece. And as you’ll hear in this revealing interview, Joan is constantly thinking forward…

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And read along with it here:

Marty: Now, before we get into talking about you, I was just…there’s a couple of things going on that you might or might not have thoughts about. One, the Grammys just happened a few hours ago. Did you pay any attention at all to that?

Joan: Well, I like that a lot of the young artists are getting their Grammys and getting their recognition. That’s about it. I’ve been so busy myself, I haven’t really had time to get into it. But it’s really nice to see, you know, it’s very important that young artists get their Grammys, get their success, because we need that to happen for music to continue.

We can’t just stay with the old. We need to acknowledge and still refer to and still play and be connected to older artists. But you can’t just do that because we’re all dying, you know, everybody’s dying. Even the young artists, they’re dying as well. So, but then they’ll become a time when they need to be looking to see who’s coming along. So it’s very important that that happens.

Marty: With age in mind, did you have any idea that now that you’re in your 70s, you’d still be doing this when you started out?

Joan: I was pretty sure as long as I wasn’t dead that I would still be making music. I didn’t know if I’d be making music that people would want to listen to or go and see or stuff like that. But I certainly knew that I would be making it because I love writing. That’s kind of why I’m here.

Marty: Because when you emerged in the 1970s, people were freaking out that The Rolling Stones were still going, and when they were well over 30. Now here they are in their 80s.

Joan: I know, I know. But people didn’t kind of, they didn’t realise that popular music, pop music, would have that longevity. They didn’t know at that point. So it’s just, it’s like the norm now, really, isn’t it?

Marty: And also speaking of folks that are no longer with us, I was wondering…Marianne Faithfull passed away just a short while ago. Did you have any interactions with her over the years?

Joan: No, I’m a very quiet person. I don’t have interactions with many people at all. But I thought she was great. It’s that last, what’s it called, Broken English, that album was fantastic. You know, when her voice went from this little kind of baby voice to this deep, mature, womanly, sexy voice. And the songs were great and she did just fantastic performance of those songs. Really, really nice. But yeah, I didn’t know her…I didn’t never met her or anything.

Marty: I think I was back in about 1980, after Broken English came out and I saw you in 1980 in Rochester, New York at the Nazareth College Arts Center. And I think…that’s a very memorable concert for me. think you had members of Little Feat playing with you at the time.

Joan: Yes, so that would be Richie Heyward. I don’t think there was another one, but there was Richie, there was, it was probably the one with Richie, this is interesting, Richie, Rich, Dick, whose name was Richard, and Dickie. That’s right! (laughs)

Marty: Crikey. That must have been interesting in rehearsals when you’re calling out.

Joan: That’s right!

Marty: And of course you kind of, kind of retired from touring, especially on big tours. Do you miss that at all? Or you happy not to have to go through that?

Joan: No, I loved being on stage. It was great, but I wanted to kind of not be on stage for a while while I was still enjoying being on stage. You know, I want to say, “Yeah, it’s New York!”. Not, “Oh no, it’s New York”. I didn’t want to do that, you know? And to slip from that to that is, you can see it being quite sudden with no warning and…I didn’t want to put myself through that. I wanted to be happy and joyful that I was there and for people not to say, ‘Well, she’s there and, you know, we paid our money, but I’m not so sure that she wanted to be there’.

Marty: Gotcha, yeah. No, I’ve seen a few shows where folks who are in the later parts in their careers probably should have retired a few years earlier, but it’s kind of sad to see that they didn’t get the message, but there you go. Okay. So now you got this new album. Well, it’s fairly new, it’s a few months old.

Joan: Yes, it came out in November last year.

Marty: How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean. Which the title of course remains relevant no matter what’s going on, seems like more relevant nowadays.

Joan: Yes, it’s about that really, even though the songs aren’t kind of reflecting world views or anything, but the title is certainly me wondering… we got ourselves into a certain situation where, if you if somebody insulted you it was fine, but if you insulted them, it was a fine, it was a crime. If you said something against somebody, you couldn’t, but they could say something against you. If you went somewhere, you shouldn’t, but if somebody came to you…the whole thing was like topsy-turvy. You couldn’t have your opinion and somebody else had their opinion and still remain friends. You had to have their opinion. It’s just weird. And I was thinking, how on earth did we get to this situation where nobody…when we talk about freedom and freedom of speech and all that stuff…but nobody could say anything. It’s like, what a weird situation to be in. And I just wondered, what’s it mean and how do we get out of it? I’m hoping that we are going to start to get out of it.

Marty: Do you spend much time on social media?

Joan: I like watching funny films. I don’t put my life on social media. That’s that’s not what I’m about. I haven’t spent the last 50 years saying I like my privacy. then suddenly it’s all on social media. That would be like a bit of a schizophrenic happening there.

Marty: Now, the project you had before this was a classical symphony that you wrote and had performed. And I’m wondering how much did that change or affect or influence what we’re listening to on this new record at all?

Joan: Well, I’d always known that I would write…I love classical music…so I always knew that would write a classical piece. And then one day I was in the studio, I hadn’t planned on doing it, but one day was in the studio and it just felt like this is the time to do it and I just started doing it. Nobody asked me to do it, nobody asked me to write something. But because I really like classical music, I wanted to write that. And then when the Chineke! Orchestra and the the founder of that orchestra heard it, she said, well, they’ve got to play it. So that’s how that came. And it was performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London in November, the year before, I think. And I just, as I said, I just loved that. So the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra came to, or some people for that from Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, came to the concert. And then they asked me to write a choral piece.

And so I’ve written the choral piece and that will be performed this year, I think, around about April or so. But I don’t think it’s…kind of yes, kind of no. I think you’ll notice that the strings on this album are a little bit, probably a little bit more orchestral, only because that’s what I felt they needed rather than necessarily being influenced by what I did. Because when I do the next thing, it probably won’t be, might not even have strings on it at all, I don’t know. But the strings were a little bit more flamboyant on this album and that was my…I don’t know, I have no idea.

Marty: Yeah, I noticed that on Irresistible, the track Irresistible.

Joan: Yeah, it’s very orchestrated, isn’t it? Yeah.

Marty: And you love to record all on your own. You have your own studio, Bumpkin Studio, and you pretty much play and produce everything yourself. Is that by choice or necessity?

Joan: Now it’s by choice. I’ve been doing that for years. I think a lot of people seem to have the impression that I’ve just done it for the first time. But that’s not the case. I’ve always been involved with my records from day one. I write and I arrange and do all of those things. Even if I’m working with a producer, I go in with a complete song, not a…not an idea and hope everybody else is going to help to make it become a song. So I go in with the song. And I’ve worked with, you know, my first producer was Gus Dudgeon and absolutely loved Gus because Gus knew that I knew what I wanted. And he just made sure that that happened rather than saying, ‘I’m the producer, you’re going to do what I say’. He made sure that what I wanted was what happened. And then I’m lucky that I worked with Glyn Johns, the same thing. Glyn is…you know, they’re two exceptional engineers and producers and both, not big heads, both realizing that if somebody knows what they want to go along with that. So really seriously lucky to have worked with those two guys.

Marty: I think Glyn Johns kind of has grown in stature from people watching that Beatles film that, did you watch it?

Joan: I know and didn’t he look brilliant? Yeah, but now his stature is absolutely deserved because he’s a very clever man with with sonic stuff. You know, the sound of things is all up to up to him. But I’ve always written my songs, played my demos myself, played everything myself, all that stuff. So I knew again, just like the classical piece, I knew at some point I would do everything myself. In actual fact it was Pino Palladino. Do you know Pino Palladino?

Marty: The bass player plays with The Who every once in a while.

Joan: Yeah, that’s right. So he’s played on a few of my albums and one particular album he was playing. And he said to me, ‘You know, Joan, I don’t know why you have somebody with you because you do realise it’s you doing everything’. And I just thought, yeah, I’m just going to get on with it. So from about ’86, I’ve been producing myself without anybody. And then about 2003, I decided that I would play everything. So from 2003 till now, I’ve been playing everything on the album myself.

And I programmed the drums or one album 2007, I’ve got Miles (Bould) to play drums, but I then played everything. And that works for me, that’s fine. I really enjoy it. It’s not a chore, I don’t feel anxious about it. I don’t feel anxious about writing. I don’t have writer’s block and stuff like that. I’m quite happy, quite content.

Marty: Speaking of your writing, I think you’ve described it yourself as being observational rather than biographical. And since you’ve been writing and observing for 50 years or more now, I’m wondering if your observations have led you to observe any changes in basic human nature over those times. Are you observing the same things now that you were back in the 1970s?

Joan: Well, the thing about people is because there’s new people all the time, new people have a different perspective than old people. And so it’s quite interesting to have the same subject from that point of view, from a younger person’s of view, or from a different person’s point of view. And so…one of the things that I always like to tell is when one day I was on the train and I saw a group of young girls and one of them had just discovered olives. And she was so excited about finding this food that she just thought was so fantastic and she was telling them about it and it was great. When would you see somebody who’s older who knows olives talk about them in that kind of way. It’s stuff like that.

You just look and you just see different things and people talk about things in different ways and people react. I write about people’s emotions that they love each other or hate each other or get on, don’t get on. And people, if there’s somebody in love, I wrote a song called Lovers Speak and people in love have a very different reaction to love. It’s not everybody who’s in love and they’re all lovey-dovey and it’s all wonderful. But it’s not everybody who’s in a relationship that’s toxic, you know, or it’s not everybody who’s in a relationship where they’re quite happy to be separate, they want more than one relationship at the same time. Everybody’s got something different, so there’s lots of differences that you can work with.

Marty: Now I also noticed you’ve become quite the guitar slinger on this record in bits and pieces. There’s an instrumental called Back and Forth that’s kind of a showcase for your playing. Tell me about all that. How did that come about?

Joan: Well, I think people don’t realize a lot of guitar on the albums is me for a start. So they think this is like I’ve suddenly this I’ve suddenly learned to play. But of course, that’s not the case. So now I just…I just get a little bit like the classical piece,  I just woke up one morning, just really wanting to play. And I just went into the studio and played. And so that’s what came out. It wasn’t I didn’t plan on…I didn’t say, well, let me write it like this or structure it like this. And I just, I just played.

Marty: Do you practice all the time or do you listen to other guitar players and what’s your relationship with your guitar?

Joan: No. I love playing guitar, but I also love writing and so a lot of what I do comes out of writing. If there’s a solo, I want to hear what does that solo sound like, if there’s a bass, what does that bass part sound like? So I try and do that. It’s more that I’m writing that I’m playing. Even though playing is very important to me, but writing is the most important thing.

Marty: And you mentioned that people don’t expect you to be playing guitar. So that kind of touches on expectations and preconceived notions about you or anybody really. Has that been something you’ve struggled to kind of push against over the years? Is it easier, better, different, worse now than it has been?

Joan: I have no idea. I’ve been on stage playing a solo and I’ve seen people look at the other guitarist. The record company actually did a…in 2007, I did an album called Into The Blues, because I’ve done a trilogy of blues, rock, jazz. And Into the Blues, I play a song called Lost the Love and the record company did a focus group thing and they played that and asked who the guitarist was and not one person mentioned me. They mentioned just about everybody else from Mark Knopfler to Eric Clapton to Jimmy Page to whoever they mentioned. Not one person mentioned me.

Marty: That’s got to be frustrating though. Especially being a woman and you know, people just have this concept of, know, there’s like the exception to the rule, but it’s the rule though is, you know, the guitar slingers, like you mentioned, Jimmy Page, Mark Knopfler, whoever it may be. It’s always a guy.

And speaking of Mark Knopfler, the artwork on your album kind of looks at first glance like Making Movies by Dire Straits. Was that an accident? The color scheme.

Joan: Oh really? I didn’t… it’s okay. I know. I’m going to have a look at that now.

Marty: I may be wrong, but I think I’m right. don’t know. Is there somebody, are they someone you’ve kind of looked to and worked with or thought about?

Joan: No, I didn’t even know that was…no, I just wanted to have that colour in. I just came up with that colour in. Yeah, I’ve just looked at it, Making Movies,  yes, it’s that red with the blue thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there’s no picture of a person on it. I’m on mine, but yeah.

Marty: Right.

Joan: That looks great as well, so does mine.

Marty: Yes, it does. That does help. And I see you made a video for I’m Not Moving. And you make a little cameo appearance in there. Why that song and tell me a little bit of how the visualization came about.

Joan: Well, the song was written because I was in this place and I saw this young person having a bit of a meltdown, quite a meltdown actually. And they were saying, the words that I use in the song, they were saying, I’m not moving, you call the police, you can’t move me. I’m going kill everybody. All the stuff that’s in there, this is what they were saying. And people were having a job getting them to move. They did eventually get them to move. But it was such a ‘what is happening here?’ moment that I literally stood where I was and wrote the lyrics. Just, they just flowed like that because it was quite a thing. So that’s that. But in terms of the video, that was up to the people who made the video. I didn’t contribute apart from the cameo. And the cameo is because the record company would like me to be in the videos. I don’t particularly want to be in them. So I suggested I just did that. So I’m hoping that now I’ve done that, I can always just do that.

Marty: And you mentioned when you wrote that song, the words just kind of flowed to you. And that made me think of, I don’t know if you’ve seen the new film about Bob Dylan that Timothee Chalamet was in…

Joan: Not yet

Marty: That’s the main essence of that film was it seems like Bob just had these songs going through him. He had no control over them, he just had to write them down with you. Does that happen with you?

Joan: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, as I mentioned before, I don’t have writers’ block. I’m never worried about writing songs. I can just, when I’m ready to write, luckily its seems to be very often, ready to write, I can just write. There’s no angst. There’s kind of, no, will I be able to do this? And I don’t have those kinds of things. just, I’m very happy to write.

And then I heard Paul McCartney say that he was very good at melody and they just came to him, so same with me. Melody is just…I don’t have to struggle to find a melody. And if we go back to the symphony, I didn’t have to struggle to write the symphony. It was just, again, just does it. The music just presents itself.

Marty: It must be a magical feeling to be able to just kind of have that come through you and out of you.

Joan: It’s a brilliant feeling. I absolutely love it. I am at my happiest when I’m writing. When I’ve written something that I think is really good, I do give myself a pat on the back because it’s a nice thing to do. And I love it if I’ve written words that I think are good and expressive. You know, it’s because I feel it’s like a God-given talent and it’s my job to use it well, so I try and use it as best I can.

Marty: Alrighty. Well, sounds like you are because, and no, no slowing down, which I like to see.

Joan: Well, there’s no need to, in terms of creativity, there’s no need to slow down. If you look at somebody like David Hockney, think is in his 80s, 90s, wherever, he’s not slowing down and his work is just as vibrant. If you look at Peter Blake, same thing, older, still just as vibrant. If you look at the work, it looks like a younger person. And it’s just what’s in your head.

Marty:  Yep. Very good. All right. Well, I don’t imagine we’ll be seeing you down in New Zealand anytime soon, but, that’s fair enough. You’ve done your bit there on the road, but, but thank you for taking all this time talking to me about the new record. Are you thinking about the next one already?

Joan: I am, yes, yeah, I am. I’m thinking about the next both pop and classical.

Marty: Cool. Now you got a dual career going!

Joan Armatrading’s How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean is out now on BMG

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