Article published in Rave magazine – April 1967
Cat O’ Nine Tales, and he tells them all, and more, to top disc-jockey Alan Freeman in this exclusive RAVE Heart-to-Heart interview
Cat Stevens: Exclusive interview | It was for more than his dark, sleek good looks that a girl friend stuck the nickname on Cat Stevens. There are any amount of feline parallels in the lightning rise of this new teenage star.
Cats like to climb, but only when there’s something worthwhile up there. It was buying the musical papers that put the notion of cracking the Charts into that furry, jet-black head. “I used to read about other people,” said Cat.
“Then I started wondering: why couldn’t they be writing about me?”
Well they are. And not only the musicals, but the dailies, Sundays and the foreign press as well. I’ve seen a few people rocket to the top in the pop game, but Cat must hold the record for the shortest interval between ambition and achievement. It all happened for him in five weeks.
Cats like rooftops, so I took Cat out on mine as soon as he arrived. But London views are no novelty to a boy who grew up in the heart of the West End, and the evening mist wasn’t doing anything much for the city’s glamour. So we went back into my big living-room and made ourselves comfortable.
Cat Stevens: Exclusive interview
“Can I offer you a saucer of something?” I inquired hospitably.
“You certainly can,” Cat said, grinning. “Vodka and lime’s my favourite.”
I fixed the glasses and handed him his. “Here’s to the big time,” I said. “So what are you going to do with your money? Yachts? Cars? Mink coats for the girl?”
I ought to have remembered that cats are cautious. “No, none of that,” Cat said, shaking his head. “You see, Alan, I’m a big miser. I worry about everything. It’s not that I want the money for anything special. It’s having it that interests me.
I want a piece of ground
“I suppose it’s the feeling of security it gives. That’s the way my little mind works. Mainly what I want is a piece of ground. Either in Sweden or Greece.”
That figures. Cat, formally known as Steve Adams but formally registered as Stephen Georgiou, has a Greek father and a Swedish mother. “I’m glad it’s that way round,” he said. “Just imagine if I had a hairy Greek mother and a fair-skinned father!”
I assured him that nobody of his generation cares very much any more about skins. They base their judgements these days on what kind of person is inside them . . . although I admit that Cat’s white teeth and olive complexion are going to turn-on many a rave girl before he quits the microphone and retires to his dreamed-of acres.
Interest in music
His mother comes from Gevle, a town in central Sweden whose name means “devil” and is reputed to have the country’s best-looking girls. “That’s the first place I can remember getting interested in music,” he recalled.
“My parents took me there when I was three or four. One of my relatives, Hugo Wickmann, is a famous painter in Sweden. He loved music and singing and I reckon he must have started me off. When I went to school there I began to like classical music. I liked Tchaikovsky most and he’s still my favourite composer.”
Cat is a big fan of Leonard Bernstein, the American composer who recently said that good modern pop has more vitality and feeling of adventure than the compositions of avant-garde “serious” musicians. In fact with his international family background, Cat has more musical influences coming at him than he can cope with.
Cat Stevens: Exclusive interview
He’s written songs in Swedish with his mother, and he has Greek uncles who play the bazouki.
But he tries not to let other people’s ideas crowd his work. “When I feel the writing thing coming on I take a long walk on my own,” he said. “I love walking in London at night, thinking things out, and then I come back to my room and work. Loneliness is what makes a song come out right out.”
Cat lay back on the sofa during the silences that punctuated the conversation and looked out through half-closed eyes. I had never met a singer so relaxed and unexcited about instant success.
“You’re hard to make out,” I said. “If I’d gone into the Charts with a record at No. 9 I’d have been out pouring pink champagne down the streets.”
“Yeah, I ought to feel it,” he said. “But I can’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with me because I believe in just forgetting about things for a time. I haven’t had a meal all day.” He refused a snack, setting for another vodka and lime. “I just told myself I’m going nuts.”
He considered this possibility for a moment, then announced, “No, I’m not going nuts, I think why I’m here is to try to bring a change. I’d like young people to know there is music other than pop. I intend to give it to them.
I mean, the Beach Boys do it pretty well. I’m not just trying to sell records. I’m not being mean and selfish if I do songs to please myself, because they’ve usually wound up pleasing a lot of other people too.”
I asked Cat who else pleases him. “My favourite singer is Nina Simone,” he said. “But say I went into a shop and I wanted to hear a record. I’d listen to Nina, then I’d listen to Charlie Mingus, and then I’d listen to a pop record and I’d hate it, Then I’d go on to Tchaikovsky.”
“All right.” I said. “But I should tell you that one star after another has sat right where you’re sitting now, and they’ve said again and again, ‘Alan, I’m miserable. I haven’t got the freedom to record what I want to record,”
And it’s been the same story every time. The artist wants to do something original to please himself and the money people put the pressure on him to record what they think is commercial.
Freedom
“Don’t think I’m putting you down,” I went on. “But I’d be interested to see how you reckon on having this freedom that a lot of others couldn’t get for themselves.”
I’d forgotten that cats are born to look after themselves. A fighting look came into his eyes. Hidden in the Stevens’ armoury, it seemed, there are claws.
“Okay, Alan,” he said quietly. “These things do happen. You know I’m not long in the business and I appreciate what you’re telling me. But I’d like to point out a few things.
“Number one, I told you I was very interested in money. Well, I wouldn’t care about trying to help bring about any change or improvement in people’s musical taste unless I knew there was money in it.
We all want something better than what we’ve got That’s only natural and it’s something I don’t think is ever going to stop.
Cat Stevens: Exclusive interview
“Music is going to get deeper, my music too, until one day people will be able to look back and see this lah-lah-dee-dee nursery-rhyme pop for what it is. It’s not a gigantic change but it’s one that will have to take place – and prety soon, I think. I’m aiming at young adults, not little kids whose pocket money is being cut down in this crisis.
I’m aiming at people who earn their money and who are as choosy as I am when it comes to buying records.”
“Hooray for you!” I said. “You’d better eat something ‘or you’ll starve.” He said he’d be content with biscuits, so I got him a plateful.
“All right,” said Cat, chewing busily and waving a wholemeal digestive in emphasis. “Number two, I know what teenagers think in this city, because I live here. I walk half a minute in one direction and I’m in Leicester Square, half a minute in the other and I’m in some of the most with-it record shops in England.
Pop Fan
“Carnaby Street is practically around the corner, and the clubs are all around me. I’ve spent time in them. I don’t have to think about trends or images. I’ve been a pop fan in the West End, and was up to a very short time ago. I know what they want, ‘cos I live among them. This is my manor.”
I nodded. “Anyone can see you’re not from Stickshire,” I said. “And believe it or not, you’re starting to get excited.”
He smiled, brushing biscuit crumbs off his jacket. “Don’t send me up, Alan. What I mean is that if I’d just arrived I might be so knocked out with the London scene that I’d tend to believe a lot of wrong things—you know, be a bit dazzled maybe for the first few weeks.
But because I’m used to the outside things I can afford to look into the real inner things.
“I see an office as a complete world, for instance. Good and evil. I have time to look at an antique shop, see name Matthew over the door and wonder – has he a son? Does he want him to go into business. Did he have to struggle and fight like my father before he was able to build up his restaurant.
So I thought of a story and turned it into a song. It took longer than almost any song I’ve written, but I was tying to keep up with somebody else’s idea of what people want to hear. As long as they like what I do I’m happy.
And I’ve got a couple of other things going for me in getting this freedom to make records I like.
Tremendous Reaction
“I’m on Deram, which reckons to be a label that puts out stuff that’s different. Everybody stood on their heads to get ‘I Love My Dog’ out fast. I got a tremendous reaction from Tony Hall there. They actually want unusual things.
Finally, there’s Mike Hurst, my producer. We understand each other so well that there’s almost no need to explain an idea in detail. The minute I met him I thought: this is great—this guy and I really click. With Mike I don’t have to get hung up looking for ways to explain, to make what I mean clear. I mean, the production in ‘Dog’ was unusual and different too.
“I couldn’t work like that if Mike was a conformist. That’s why I packed in art school. It was going to be the big painting thing for me, but I gave it up because I couldn’t stand art students. All that chat about not conforming but they turned out to be big conformists. It’s funny now—I see them these days coming out of my old school, the Hammersmith College of Art, and I’m going into the BBC opposite in Lime Grove to do a Top of the Pops.
Caroline, my secretary, emerged from her office with her coat on. “Night, one and all,” she said. Cat sat up with a jerk and looked at his watch. “Must be on my way,” he said.
Cat Stevens: Exclusive interview
“Better wait a while,” Caroline said. “I just looked out the window and there’s ten fans outside the building.”
“Where’s Peps?” I said. looking around the apartment.
“I didn’t bring him today,” she said, letting herself out.
“Hey, who’s Pepe?” said Cat, looking, very interested.
“Her dog,” I said. “A little chihuahua with a big bark.”
Cat slapped his knee. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “I’ve got a dog called Pepe. He’s a dachshund.”
I offered him a parting drink to celebrate this coincidence but he shook his head. “Two’s my lot, thanks, Alan. Why don’t we introduce the two Pepes sometime? They might have a mixed pup. German and Mexican. Like me, Swedish and Greek.
“They might,” I said. “But I doubt it, Unless your Pepe isn’t a he.”
He shrugged. “I never was a good mixer,” he said.
“What’re you going to do with your life, Cat?” I asked.
“Like I said,” he replied “Put money away for that bit of ground. I’m working so hard now I haven’t any time to meet girls like before. But maybe I’ll find a nice chick in Sweden and settle down.”
A Golden Disc
With skis and bazoukis, I thought, and maybe in time a Golden Disc to go over the fireplace in a mountain chalet.
In the hall, as he headed down to face the challenge of the ten sentries in the porch below, Cat paused.
“Do something for me, Alan,” he begged.
“Name it,” I said.
“Say ‘Hi, there, pop-pickers’.”
“Hi, there, pop-pickers.”
‘Stay bright.”
‘Stay bright,” I said. “And don’t get your fur wet.”
See you next month.
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