WIRRAL LIFE TALK TO NIK KERSHAW BY SI HALL & MARIE FITZSIMMONS
W L INTERVIEW
WIRRAL LIFE TALK TO NIK KERSHAW BY SI HALL & MARIE FITZSIMMONS
Nik Kershaw is a singer , songwriter , multi-instrumentalist and record producer . He came to prominence in 1984 as a solo artist . He released eight singles that entered the top 40 of the UK Singles Chart during the decade , including " Wouldn ' t It Be Good ", " Dancing Girls ", " I Won ' t Let the Sun Go Down on Me ", " Human Racing ", " The Riddle ", " Wide Boy ", " Don Quixote ", and " When a Heart Beats ". His 62 weeks on the UK Singles Chart through 1984 and 1985 beat all other solo artists . Kershaw appeared at the multi-venue benefit concert Live Aid in 1985 and has also penned a number of hits for other artists , including a UK No . 1 single in 1991 for Chesney Hawkes , " The One and Only ". Wirral Life caught up with Nik .
You ’ ve announced ‘ The 1984 tour ’ to celebrate 40 years . How does this feel , 40 years in the business ?
It ' s just great to know that people are still into this , you know ! I love that I still get to do this . I am enjoying gigs much more than I did back in the day . You ’ re in your own little bubble and it feels like the whole world is waiting for your next move . Touring was stressful for me back then and I usually couldn ’ t wait for the end of the tour . My natural place was in the studio , but now it ’ s totally different and I enjoy being on stage and being in the moment with it . It was something I was never able to do back in the day unfortunately . So , I ’ m really looking forward to this tour .
1984 was a spectacular summer for you ! Yeah . It was yeah , I was kind of crowned off by a gig I did with Elton John in Wembley Stadium , it was called the ‘ Summer of 84 ’ by Radio One . It was crazy , going from January that year when I couldn ' t get arrested as nobody knew who I was or anything , to actually playing in front of 80,000 people in Wembley Stadium 6 months later . That was just bonkers .
What was the first instrument you learned to play ?
Well , I ' ve only ever learned to play one instrument really and I don ' t think you ever completely learn how to play an instrument . I ' ve certainly not mastered it , but I am a guitarist . That ’ s just what I picked up first . I ' d never call myself a keyboard player or a drummer . I can get my computer to play keyboards , and I can get my computer to play the drums , but yeah , I ’ m not any of those things , I ’ m a guitarist .
So , you ’ ve been playing guitar since the age of 15 , you go on ‘ Top of the Pops ’ and you ’ re put in front of a keyboard !
Yeah , with one finger ! Well , my first TV appearance was on a thing called ‘ Pebble Mill at One ’. That was a bit of a car crash as well , because I remember I didn ' t have a guitar or a keyboard and basically , for someone who spent his life standing at the back in a band , playing the guitar with a pint of lager resting on top of the amp and all of a sudden there ' s TV cameras and I ’ m being attacked by a stylist , so , I ' m feeling really uncomfortable . I don ' t know what on earth am I wearing , and you know , the hair . I don ’ t know what ' s going on , I ’ m having to mime to my own song ! I remember I had to walk down a ramp , you know most people can walk up or down a ramp , right ? But when you got TV cameras looking at you and you ' re trying to mime a song , and you don ' t remember how you sung it in the first place ; the playback is about 100 metres away , so everything ' s delayed . It was just dreadful . Yeah , so I was about 3 ‘ Top of the Pops ’ in by the time I said to someone , look , can you just stick a guitar around me ? Because that ' s the only thing that made me feel vaguely comfortable .
You have written songs for the likes of Chesney Hawkes , Jason Donovan , Elton John . The most notable was ‘ The One and Only ’?
Yeah , ‘ The One and Only ’, that was the big one . Well , at the end of 1989 I ' d done my 4 albums for ‘ MCA Records ’ and they decided they didn ' t want another one . So , I thought all right then , this seems like a good time to take stock and figure out what I want to do with my life . I decided I was going to write and produce for other people , and I wasn ' t going to perform anymore . So , literally a few weeks later I sat down in the studio and the first song out of the bag was the was ‘ The One and Only ’. I finished it , mixed it and stuck it on a shelf , I didn ' t really think twice about that song . I think because it just came very easily to me , and I ' m always suspicious about anything if it comes too easy , it can ' t be any good if it ' s too easy . So that went on a shelf , and it wasn ' t until a couple of couple of years later , until anybody showed an interest in it , and then you know , the rest is history as they say .
Didn ’ t Elton once say that you are the best songwriter of your generation , wow !
So yeah , I mean they ’ ve been wheeling out that quote for many years now , or press people trying to , you know to big me up and stuff like that , and to an extent I ' m thinking , did he say that ? I
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