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Interview to "Home Again" December 2004 with Jimmy Somerville exclusive for the International Fanpage !

Home Again is there name of the new album. Why this name and what´s the meaning behind it

Mmm it´s more about the lyrics on the album because in the end it´s the lyrics are saying no matter where you are or what happens to you and what you do – there's a saying in English "home is where the heart" is and for me personally that is where home is – it doesn't matter where you live or what house you live in – it's more about the people you know, who love you and you love too – so I think that´s home, that´s really what the sentiment is about!

The new album has got more of a club-mix feel to it – you worked internationally with a lot of DJs and producers – are you trying to reach a new fan-base with this album – how do you feel the older fans will take to the album?

I never think in that respect – it just seems to happen like that but I think the interesting thing about this album is the people I´ve worked with on this album especially the Ralf Elmar Track "Special Days" which will mean that the stuff I will do after this will be very very different because we suddenly realised by doing the song "Selfish Days" that we could actually work together writing something very different which is not club. Then also John Winfield who is a friend of mine – we´ve actually been working on some jazz and bluesy kind of music so there are many different approaches on the horizon with new projects. This process of this album just seems to happen like that – the sound, the feel of it. A lot of the people I was introduced to were also club DJs and producers. I know that the next album again will have a different feel to it.

Most of the songs on the album are about LOVE – either finding it or loosing it – why is this? - because comparing it to the last album "Manage the damage" where there were a lot of songs telling all kinds of stories – the theme of love seems to be more present on this album – is it autobiographical?

They are kind of love songs but it some senses not really – they are not personal love songs, not really – it´s hard to explain. They are not really songs about me except for two songs which are quite personal one of which is "It´s so Good" - this is personal but I think the others are love songs just about fantasies of love. Another personal song on the album is my anti-war song "What´s Your Game". I think that things at this moment in time are hard – globally. We live in uncertain and frightening times so I wanted to use the love songs as songs of escapism and especially for gay men, one of which I am, it´s good to have something coming from another point of view, the songs are coming from a man who loves another man and I would like to think that men listening to the songs will get something from them – I do feel at the moment we live in very uncertain times and sometimes love is the thing that sees you through so many problems – the song at the very end "Stay2 is a love song but its more about passion and friendship and I do suppose friendship is also love. Perhaps they all come across as personal love songs but they are not – they are more about me expressing a love that is for people you are close to and people you need to be with – in these time that´s really really important.

Why has the album release been delayed in Germany?

Oh, it´s just so boring and the usual record-company stuff – record-company politics and in the end I can´t really be fucked (excuse my French) to explain it cause it´s boring. In the end I enter into a contract and as much as I wanted to make this album and to be the way I want to be, I have to make some compromises and some things don´t go as according to plan – that´s the reason really!

Will there be a home again German Tour?

I would like to think so and it won´t just be a "Home Again-Tour" – it will be a whole collection of everything I´ve ever done with a band. The great thing is I think I´ve got enough material from the past to possibly do a tour with two-hour-sets and not just to pick the songs that were singles but also to pick other strong songs that represent my history from the very beginning. I mean, I´ve never done songs like "Screaming" or stuff like that. I´d prefer to do something like that than doing "Small-Town-Boy". I´d like to do other tracks from early albums so that people understand just how diverse those albums were. On the Communards albums there was a lot of pop and disco but there was also a lot of blues and jazz like the songs "Lover Man" and "Tumbling Down" – those kinds of songs. There are so many different kinds of things on the albums!

Why did you cover Depeche Mode on the Album and what´s your connection to the song "But Not Tonight"?

It´s just more the melody. It´s a great song it was one of their B-Sides and not a single so it was a less obvious song to cover and the lyrics are great – it´s a very passionate love song and it´s also about how fragile and how vulnerable you can be in love and as he wrote the song he seemed to be lyrically in touch with the elements – he´s outside it´s about the moon and the stars and it´s just all outdoors – that really appeals to be – it´s a really romantic song

In the song "Amnesia" you are describing a relationship in which you are being poisoned at a slow pace – is this also autobiographical?

It´s funny because the whole song is about the longest relationship I have ever had. It´s about a relationship I´ve had all of may life, so it´s the strongest and probably the most consistent and powerful relationships I´ve ever had – and that´s vodka!! The whole song is about vodka! The song is really about vodka!!

Which song on the album took the most time to create?

It´s kind of difficult to say cause I live in England and the people I worked with all live in different parts of Europe. All of the songs took a long time because we would send each other pieces and listen to them and then send things back again. I had to go to Germany a lot to record and then back to London and then back again to Germany to mix. They all took some time to work on. It was a long process because of the distance –no song in particular was longer than another!

Is there a song on the album which you really really really like??

For me the one I love more than anything is "Stay". For me it´s a very Celtic sounding song. It´s very Gaelic, Celtic, Scottish sounding song – it´s a simple song but incredibly passionate and again it´s not about me speaking directly about something that´s personal. It´s just about having experienced that before and the listeners of the album are experiencing it or will experience it – for meat's a great song to convey the energies and emotions about how it is to be really so in love cause it is a incredible feeling!

You like 70s pop/disco music – is this one of the reasons why you covered "Ain´t No Mountain High Enough"

No not really. It had more to do with the time today. I remember the song from when I was younger - the Diane Ross version is the one most people know and the lyrics are different where as the one I have done is from the original version which was written by Ashford & Simpson and is not that well known – again I think the lyrics are really great, really positive lyrics – they are lyrics of encouragement and empowerment and it´s got more to do with the way we are today, the times we live in, the fear we live in e.g. of terrorism, of governments becoming more reactionary – everyone and life just seems to be paranoid at the moment – so I just wanted to do this track as I love the idea that if you do have friends and you do have people you really love, whatever you come up against, these friendships give you courage to move on - there is no mountain high enough, no valley low enough etc – for me and I think for a lot of people, love is going to be an important thing – that´s how I feel!

Come On didn't do that well in Germany – that wasn´t because of the song itself but more to do with the promotion side of things or rather the lack of promotion!

It´s funny because radio stations were saying that the song was not what people wanted to hear – it´s not what they were used to when they think of my voice and it was too progressive and not really that what people wanted to hear – it´s a difficult thing. People at radio seem to have an idea of how someone should sound and if they like it they'll play it and if they don´t they're not interested – it should really be up to the people, they should decide wither its too progressive or whatever. It should be played but that's a difficult thing.

So it´s got more to do with the people on the radio level and not at the record label/promotion level – the promotion was okay for you?

No it wasn´t because there was no video for it. That´s a nightmare. If you have no video then it´s going to be difficult cause then you don´t get it on VIVA or MTV, so you don´t get the exposure.

So what is your opinion on these people, your record company not making a video for you?

I suppose they see it as a gamble and they don´t want to loose money on anything – they of course don´t want to do that and see it as a big gamble – we'll have to see what happens with the next single really.

More CDs for downloading and burning are sold in Germany than the actual music CDs themselves. What do you think about the direction things are going?

Well I think it´s a real transitional period and obviously with having recordable CDs people will always continue doing that however people used to do that with cassettes or mini-disc so it´s not as if it´s something new – now there are also being downloads offered on the internet. It´s obviously a transitional period and the record companies have to realise that times are changing. If anything the most significant change we´ve had in the UK is that Top Of The Pops, a very popular music-show which has always been on BBC 1 at prime-time, has now moved to BBC 2 on a Saturday night at 06.30, thus it doesn't have the same influence anymore because people are listening to the internet and getting their music there – I don´t know what the answer is and how they will be able to deal with that!

Getting back to the album. You worked a lot with Felix Gauder. Could you imagine working with him in the future again or even doing a whole album with him?

Yes I can, because there are some tracks that I still have which I did with Felix which are very different from the some we did on the album so the tracks that I have, which are instrumental and on which I'm going to be working, are very different than the stuff on the album – I like working with Felix actually – it´s quite cool.

In the CD booklet you wrote – Thank God I'm an atheist – why was that there?

It was just kind of fun and I am an atheist – but at the same time I'm not an atheist ´cause that would be saying I don´t believe in God but I accept it. In my case I don´t tolerate religion of any kind especially established religion like Christianity. I did it because everyone (artists) now is thanking God for their success – they are saying if it wasn´t for God I wouldn't have such a beautiful voice – this used to be a black-artist thing but now the white artists are doing it, too. I read an interview recently about Mary G. Blige and someone asked her what was her beauty-regime? She said "My beauty-regime is Jesus" – and I thought for fuck sake what do you do – rub Jesus over your face? It´s unbelievable so with the "Thank God I'm an atheist" thing I just wanted to have fun with the thanking God thing, too!

An ex-band-mate of yours Richard Coles (Communards) is going on for the priesthood. What do you think about that?

Yeah, he has just finished his theology degree and will become a Roman-Catholic priest. That´s just where he is in his life now and I just think if thetas what he wants to do then that´s what he should do. It is bizarre, it´s strange and I do laugh about it sometimes when I think about it.

On this album you worked with various producers which you didn't do on the last albums "Manage The Damage" or "Dare To Love" – how different was the work this time around?

Well that´s the great thing about doing all these collaborations, it doesn't end up that personal thus I don´t feel that precious about it – I'm not that scared if undesired things were to happen with the album basically because it is not such an introspective album - it´s not really all about me – the songs are about how I think and feel but they're not too personal especially the love songs... they are not love-songs about me – that´s kind of good really however the whole project was a good experience and I don´t really know if I would do it again... maybe I would I'm not sure... it would all depend. It was a good experience as I´ve never done that kind of thing before.

Can you still identify with the album?

Yes of-course because in the end they are my lyrics and my voice – I have been singing things which were in my head. 2 or 3 of the songs were written by others but most of the lyrical input was mine. It´s not a problem for me just to sing songs and be an instrument myself. It´s good not to be this tortured artist where all the things have to come from inside me... it´s good just to sing songs that have come from someone else's imagination, too. It was cool

Jake Shear of the scissor sisters said once in an interview "God Save Jimmy Somerville because he helped me through my coming-out" Would you say that your music is still influential for young gay men?

Firstly I did´t know that he said that. As for the other If they listen to it then it can be an influence. Songs like Small Town Boy, Why? and Screaming do communicate to people who are dealing with their sexuality – they are very specific and they are very honest and they do deal with such emotions. I think they do help and I do get letters still and mails or messages on the website from people who are still inspired. People even communicate with each other on the website. "Age Of Consent" is such an old album but people are still getting something from the songs – it's cool.

The songs on the new album are man-loves-man songs but they are not as obvious??!!

I don´t think as radically anymore in my songs as my sexuality is an every day part of my life to be like who I am... so I don´t really think about it – it´s like brushing my teeth really – it´s part of my routine just to be who I am – so I don´t really think about it. I'm not a young man dealing with my sexuality anymore – it´s a part of my complex life now.

You moved to Brighton and that´s the gay capital of Great Britain.

I think that´s a myth really. It´s perpetrated and it´s done it very well. Really it´s a place where old poofs go to die ;-)

You said once that you don´t +like to surround yourself with too many gay men all at once yet you have moved to this place. Have you changed your mind on that?

It´s really not a big gay city. There is a small gay scene and there is a small gay area but I don´t live there. I don´t go into the gay scene that often and I didn't really do that in London, either. I don´t rally go out that much but because Brighton is a smaller place – gay men are more visible. I'm not part of a ghetto or part of a community really. I do like being by the sea and away from London

Do you miss London?

No, because I still go back there as I have a place there too and have things ´to do there. I'll always have this connection with London and will always go back and fourth. London really moulded me, London created who I am – it is such a huge part of my life and it always will be.

How does Jimmy Somerville write a song – does he start with the lyrics or does he start with the sound – how does it all come about?

It could be any of those. An example would be "Selfish Days" a track I did with Rolf Elmar from Jam and Spoon. This man is like hard core techno/dance but with him I do the softest and most classical track on the album – a communardish kind of song, a song I could have done with Richard – a very classical influence, very soft and balladish. I was expecting something totally different with Rolf. So this is an example where the song process can just end up anywhere.

"Selfish Days" is a political song?

This song was influenced by my observance of society in general and of what I read in newspapers. Selfish Days is about a man and a woman – they were part of society and had the luxury of a life that was comfortable. Then suddenly something happens to these characters. They are no longer the people they used to be and find themselves in the most vulnerable situation and the find themselves also in the situation where no one really cares about them or what has happened to them – and this makes me angry cause I see that happening all the time now – more and more. I think it´s one of the most criminal things we can do and that is for our youth to have this feeling of vulnerability, for them to feel they are disappearing within the system – they are on the streets, no money, no work, no home and suddenly they're life is over and yet they haven't really begun their life. Another song "What´s your game?" is a complete anti-war song. And directed at our Prime Minister Tony Blair. A huge percentage of the population believe we were lied to about the reasons for going to war. We were told about weapons of mass-destruction which could reach us within 45 minutes – this was the reason that Britain went to war but now the reason is that he was a dictator. That doesn't matter as Iraq was a sovereign state. We had no right to go in there at least until the United Nations as a collective identity decided it was necessary. What about North Korea where there is a dictatorship, starving people and genocide and a supposedly nuclear program? If the United Nations agreed on this then I'm completely for it as all these human rights abuses are shocking. The reason for Britain going to war was a pure lie – this is what the song is about ands now look at the consequences – we don´t know about how many tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died in the process – the frightening thing is, it´s also a religious war – most of the American people are fighting a war based on their religious beliefs... so some of the songs are not just love songs. That´s my inspiration for some of the lyrics on the album.

So you really do concentrate more on your lyrics than on sound?

Well sometimes on my mobile phone I´d sing a melody that has just come to mind onto the voice-recorder and then work on lyrics from a melody that I have.