Wayne Hussey - It's Good to be back to Buenos Aires by Revista The 13th

The13th AÑO: 2

NÚMERO 22

UNA R E VISTA IMA GINARIA

[ Wayne Hussey interview by Marcelo Simonetti ]

IT'S GOOD TOBE BACK TO BUENOS AIRES Once again Wayne Hussey is appearing in our pages, like in our 18th number. And this time to anticípate his next visit to Buenos Aires, with two shows in Boris Café, 20th and 21th november. In this interview, The Mission singer opens the doors of the intimacy of those meetings with us, argentinian missionaries

Hello Wayne, first of all thank you for letting us interview you again. After your Mission/Bloodbrothers shows in the UK and Europe you’ve just announced two solo shows in Buenos Aires, for our pleasure. We will finally have the opportunity to enjoy live versions from your beautiful last album, SOCAR. Did you think about how will you do the shows? Will they be as unpredictable as your 2014 solo shows around Europe, reflected on last double live dvd? Or are you planning a “hits” show, with the usual Mission classics and a couple of covers? It’s good to be coming back to Buenos Aires, my favourite South American city. I always enjoy myself there. It’s actually one solo show and the 2nd show is a show with Jimmy Rip. I haven’t yet

really thought about the shows but certainly my own show I hope will be similar to the shows I played on my solo tour last year. I have an iPad with the lyrics to over 100 songs that I can choose from on any given night so there will certainly be a degree of unpredictability. Each show is it’s own unique journey dictated by such things as how much wine I have had to drink, what people from the audience ask for, what colour socks I am wearing, whether Liverpool have won or lost. There’ll be songs that the audience will know, some maybe not. The setlists of the Leeds and the Workington shows were almost completely different, as we can see them in the dvds you’ve just released. Are you thinking in two different shows, or you will just know what you will do the moment before the show? They will definitely be two different shows. Not quite sure yet what Jimmy and I will do. I’ve got a couple of ideas but I’ve yet to run them past Jimmy. For my own show I don’t usually work from a set list. I have an idea of what to start with and then generally see where it goes. Is that a difference with The Mission, isn’t it? You’re much more yourself. You can play and sing what you want at that very moment. Or is it as premeditated as a Mission show? I can be myself with the band as well, you know. It’s just not as spontaneous because of the fact that there are 4 people involved but I do like to change the set list every night with the band, even if it’s only just 2 or 3 songs. It keeps the band on their toes, makes it more exciting for me, and hopefully also the audience. I also do sometimes deviate from the set list if the mood takes me. That really throws ‘em. In conversation with the band they would all prefer to play the same songs every night in the same order and I can understand why but for me that would and does get so boring. With the solo show I can take it wherever I feel like taking it. That is the difference between the two. In your last solo show here in 2012, we listened

“There ain’t no prayer in the bible can save me now”live before it was released in TBL. Have you been working on new songs? Maybe we can hear something next November… Well, I am supposed to be taking this time to write new songs for the next Mission album but as of yet I don’t have anything completed. I hope to have something new to play in November though. About your lyrics. I think there was a break with Masque in the way you write them. Much better than the first records. And now I think that with TBL and SOCAR there is another break, a “giant step” in comparison with other albums. Much more personal, and in a way much more narrative (at least some of them, for example “Til the end of time”). Did you feel that change, did you work for it, was it natural? Personally I think they are the best lyrics you’ve ever wrote. Well, it’s like anything else, isn’t it? The more you do it the better you get at it – hopefully. Before The Mission I’d never really written lyrics before, just the occasional dabble so all my learning was done publicly. But I do like the lyrics to a lot of the earlier songs. There is something naïve and charming about them, something that was lost as I got more experienced. The earlier songs were more oblique, I guess, which maybe as a result of not really knowing how to articulate what I wanted to say. Or, maybe more truthfully, there were more drugs involved whilst I was writing those earlier songs. I dunno, really, Marcelo. Yeh, Masque was the first album I wrote without using amphetamines as a creative tool and maybe because of that there is a clarity to that work that wasn’t there before. As for SOCAR and TBL I know that I consciously tried to write more in the 3rd person and about events that weren’t altogether autobiographical. It’s strange that you see those two albums as more personal as I see them completely opposite to that and see them as more impersonal. But it’s the right of the listener to determine for themselves how they hear the songs, not the author. So, new solo plans, new band plans? I saw and advance of a movie via web, what’s that all about? I also

read that there will be a 30th anniversary tour next year… What can you tell us about your future projects? I know you are always moving… Next on the agenda for me is to write new songs for the next Mission album. It is indeed the band’s 30th anniversary next year and we are aiming to have a new album to release to coincide with the tour we are planning. It’s all a finely timed exercise but it can be done. And yes, we’re hoping to have a film put together for the event too. We filmed the making of TBL and also filmed and recorded all the shows in July just gone and are planning to film the making of the next album as well as Craig finding a whole load of footage from 1987-88 that has never been

seen before. I’m sure we can edit all that stuff into something worth watching. That’ll keep me busy for a while. After that, who knows? There is still a lot of stuff I’d still like to do, not least of which is to write my autobiography. It’s just finding time to do it all. At last, I just want to thank you for always being so kind and patient. You’re always welcome here in Buenos Aires. And I know that we will be living two lovely evenings with you, in a beautiful place for you to play and us to see you, in Boris Club See you in November, Cheers

The13th U NA R EVISTA IMA GINA RIA