Interview with Tom Robinson
Tom Robinson on Tour in the UK
The Tom Robinson Band’s debut album Power In The Darkness was first performed 40 years ago in Victoria Park, London in front of 80,000 people at Rock Against Racism’s Carnival Against The Nazis alongside Steel Pulse, The Clash and X-Ray Spex. The album was certified gold in the UK and Japan resulting in a major 28-date UK tour supported by Stiff Little Fingers in the Autumn of 1978.
Our music reporter, Amelia Shaw had the pleasure of talking with Tom about music, the tour and life…
Hi Tom, my name’s Amelia, I’m the music reporter at Saddleworth Life. Have you ever been to Saddleworth?
No – the closest I’ve come is Holmfirth where I played a couple of years ago.
So first of all, you’re a singer, song-writer, activist, broadcaster – how do you fit it all in?!
By not doing them all at the same time! The singing is done at a different time to the song writing, and the broadcasting is done differently again.
So you’re going on tour in October this year to celebrate 40 years of ‘Power in the Darkness’, are you looking forward to it?
Very much, yeah. It’s nice, because since 2002 I’ve been working for the BBC full time so I don’t necessarily have to go out on tour unless I want to. It’s nice to have the chance to do it.
What can people expect from this tour?
It’s a chance to touch base again with the people that have kept faith in the music over the last 40 years. It’s a very, very long time and quite interesting and quite bizarre to come back to it after so long. So for people who it meant stuff to at the time and for people who have since discovered it and wish they could have seen it back in the day – this is their chance.
How do you find touring life?
I really enjoy the 70 minutes on stage, but the rest of it – going back to the tour bus and checking in and out of motels, doing soundchecks and eating crisps at gigs – that bit isn’t quite so good.
Your latest album is ‘Only The Now’, which was released in 2015. Is there any new music in the pipeline?
We’ve actually got two new records, but they’re not really new, because they’re live albums. We had three sold out shows at the 100 Club in London last year and played ‘Power in the Darkness’ all the way through at those and the reception was so amazing from the audience that we recorded the shows and made a live album that will come out at the end of this month. It’s called ‘Live at the 100 Club’ very imaginatively, and then next year there will be a ‘Live at Sage Gateshead’ which is the songs from ‘Only the Now’ plus songs like ‘War Baby’ and ‘Listen to the Radio’ which were hits in the 80s.
We had Pride in Manchester a couple of weekends ago – I know you’re a real activist in the LGBT community, and you had the hit ‘Glad to Be Gay’ which was written for a London Pride parade – did you celebrate pride this year?
I’ve been celebrating Pride on radio, because that’s a place where I can actually do more good with my regular shows, because we can put together pride playlists and give exposure to artists that otherwise wouldn’t get heard. My biggest discovery is Sam Vance-Law, recently – Sam’s made an album called ‘Homotopia’ which is just like the most wonderful piece of music and brilliantly savage but affective lyrics. I think if a record like that had existed when I was a teenager I would have had a much happier childhood.
You’ve had your struggles with the music industry, what are your opinions on how things are now in 2018?
I think it’s great, it’s a brilliant time. I’m not one of those doom and gloom naysayers who say ‘oh it’s awful for young musicians now’. It was always awful for young musicians, the main difference is there was a lot of money splashing around and so they got preyed on by managers and publishers and A and R people and record companies who exploited the, and made a lot of money out of them. Now there’s a lot less money around, but the musicians themselves don’t get any less than they used to back in the day, they always used to get ripped off before. This is a much better time for new talent to get heard, if someone’s got a genuine gobsmacking talent, they’ve only got to put something up on YouTube and the world will beat a path to their door. That certainly wasn’t the case when I started out 40 years ago.
You were banned from certain radio stations in the past – did you ever think you’d end up being the person you are now in radio back in the 80s?
The sweetest follow up to that was in 1978 – when Doreen Davies, Radio 1 banned ‘Glad To Be Gay’. She put a sticker on it in the radio library and said that it wasn’t to be played without her permission and to make sure that I don’t get on any radio playlists for the next five years. And then in ‘98 I won a Sony radio award for a history of gay music and the director general actually had to shake my hand, congratulate me and thank me for doing it which was nice. A further 20 years on, last year in 2017, Radio 2 asked me to sing ‘Glad To Be Gay’ live on air from Hull City Hall as part of their Pride playlist so that is amazing, having your record actually banned to then be singing live from the biggest radio station in the country was a fantastic honour.
Is it not really frustrating to know that it took all of that time for it to be on radio in that way?
No not at all – at the time we never imagined at all that it would get anywhere like that far. We never dreamed that we would have a Conservative government bringing in equality of marriage for people and the level of tolerance that we have today, even though there’s disturbance and uncertainty in society at the moment, it’s still kind of more tolerant than the one I grew up in and the one in the 70s.
I heard you on Radio 2 recently – are you after Chris Evans’ job?!
No definitely not! I’m not in Chris Evans’ league – I’m not even after Johnny Walker’s job who I was sitting in for. I used to be on Radio 2 a lot more before I go the job at 6 Music but at 6 Music I’ve found my spiritual home. I have a Saturday night show when I can play some rounds and whatever I want and then I have my Sunday show which is kind of a request show called Now Playing at 6 Music and then I’ve got the middle of the night show which is my favourite one on Sunday night which is a BBC introducing mixtape where we play an hour of completely unknown artists. The latest music people have never heard before. It’s such a joy to be able to give that exposure to people who need it and who don’t happen to have insider contacts, or a rich sugar daddy financing them, or a plugger working for them so we basically connecting creators of music with consumers and that’s the most important thing to do today.
Who are your favourite artists at the moment? Either up and coming or established?
There is a really good band in Manchester who have been on BBC Introducing Manchester who have been supporting a lot called False Advertising. I think it’s just a trio but they’ve got a female vocalist. They’re great. Nat and Michelle at BBC Manchester give them a lot of exposure, but there’s also a band over in Liverpool that BBC Liverpool have been promoting called She Drew The Gun, and again it’s wonderful stuff – Steve Lamacq is supporting them on radio, and James Kelly from the Coral has produced their album so that’s all very exciting. Down in Sheffield there’s a guy called Otis Mensa who’s a rapper who we put on BBC Introducing Glastonbury and he’s really promising. Sheffield’s a real hot bed for interesting music I think. So it’s nice – obviously famous names have come up through BBC Introducing, but then that really isn’t the point of it – Ed Sheeran got played on BBC Introducing before he ever released any of his records.
We had a festival that took place recently in Saddleworth called Cotton Clouds, it was just the second year of it running. There were a few local, up and coming bands performing there – if you could give them any advice, what would it be?
Concentrate on writing songs. Most song writers do everything but write songs if you know what I mean. One of the nice things I get to do through BBC Introducing is give seminars and workshops and talks to emerging artists and try to help them to focus their efforts where they can be most useful. The trick question is to say ‘how many hours did you spend last week writing songs?’ and there’ll always be some goody-goody smart arse who will go ‘oh I did ten hours’ and I always say ‘well what did you do with the other 156 hours?’. Carole King and Gerry Goffin between them between them wrote 21 American number ones in the 60s, and they used to turn up at 9 o’clock on the Monday, and write songs until 5pm and go home and have dinner and they would Monday to Friday, year in year out, and that’s why they had 21 number one hits. If you don’t spend enough time writing songs, then you won’t end up with enough songs. A song is the thing that will change your life more than anything – more than gigging, more than promotion, more than being played on the radio – if you write the right song, the song will sell itself. All the other stuff takes care of itself.
Ok great, thank you! Best of luck on tour!
Tom Robinson will be coming to Manchester
on Thu 11 Oct MANCHESTER: Band On The Wall
More details and tickets : TOM ROBINSON
Author: Jude Gidney - Editor
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