Chords for Chris Rea - This Morning interview 1993

_ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _
[Ab] _ _ [Bb] _ _ [Eb] Hi, welcome back.
Chris Rears here.
Hi, nice to see [N] you.
Nice to see you.
_ Lots of questions to ask you, because you're quite a sort of a private pop star, aren't you?
I mean, you don't_
I'm not a pop star, that's the trouble.
He's had an arrest of lip.
Well, you're in the charts.
That'll do.
I'm number 18 at the moment.
Well, this is the trouble I have.
You know, I love music.
Yeah.
None of my idols were rock stars.
They were all musicians and writers.
Yeah.
And when you come to bring an album out, like say a writer brings a book out,
we have this problem of _ how we're going to let people know that it's there.
And seeing as I don't do the usual things that rock star show business people do,
the record company has to get together and get their heads together.
And somebody jokingly had said_
Go on this morning. _ _ _ _ _ _
I never know what I'm doing here, because I watch_
This is on the television in my kitchen.
Oh, good.
And I always think to myself, what on earth am I doing sat on here?
Because I never relate the writing of music to actually myself being on television.
Well, I've never seen you on a chat show.
I've never seen you_
Well, this isn't a chat show.
This is something different.
I do normally avoid them.
Yeah.
You've been forced into this one.
Why do you hate it so much, the whole publicity machine?
The publicity machine in England is geared towards show business.
It's not geared to _ things like what type of guitar do I play, what type of music do I write,
the intricacies of the lyrics and things like that.
The show business in England is very, very now zap, zap, zap,
gives a couple of things about where do you live and isn't it fantastic.
And it's all about this big myth about everything being fantastic.
I know_
[D] I'm too old, unfortunately.
I know better than it isn't all fantastic.
Well, reading notes about you, I mean, way back when the career was, you know,
it was stopping and starting, [N] wasn't it?
It wasn't really kind of getting going too well.
And your record company got an airbrushed picture of you.
I mean, you had to look down into the camera.
You say that they brushed out bags under your eyes and they made you look about ten years younger
and you felt like a freak and you wouldn't buy it.
You wouldn't go for it.
It's something I didn't bargain for when I actually picked up the guitar.
I was 22 when I picked up the guitar.
It's late, isn't it?
I decided that I was going to be a musician.
Yeah.
I never decided I was going to be a rock star. Yeah, yeah.
How would you describe your music?
I mean, I heard Road to Hell, which I think is a terrific song,
appropriately enough in the car.
And it struck me as being sort of mystical and strong and powerful and very sexy and all the rest of it.
And actually you wrote it because you got stuck in a traffic jam on the M25.
That's true.
It's the intersection between the M25 and the M4.
How mundane.
How prosaic. _
That's what life's like.
_ We'd been there for three hours and we had six miles to go.
And we were there for another hour and a half.
We weren't allowed to get out of the car to go for a wee.
_ We had three cigarettes left.
And we found ourselves sharing a cigarette
and complaining about somebody in the back seat who was making the cigarette wet. _
So we were putting it out and saving the last bit for later.
Sounds like starving men on a desert island, doesn't it?
_ We had this whole sci-fi sort of atmosphere that night.
Gridlock is actually quite frightening, isn't it?
If you get stuck in a queue_ What's gridlock? Traffic jam.
Oh, I see.
It's an Americanism.
That's the politically correct way of describing a traffic jam.
No, it's the hip way.
_ _ No, they can be_
[G] Sorry, _ traffic jams can actually get a bit [Ab] oppressive, can't they?
It's not just frustrating.
You can think, I'm never going to leave [N] this.
That night it did feel that way.
And that's when I started thinking up this _ thing
where there was a ghost of his mother looking in through the screen.
It's brilliant.
It's a great song.
The thing is, you say you didn't pick up a guitar until you were 22.
And at school you wanted_
You worked in your parents' factory, didn't you, because they're Italian?
Yeah, they had a little ice cream factory. _
And at school you wanted to be a journalist.
I did.
I did, yeah.
I still do.
I'm still going to be a [Eb] journalist.
Really?
One day, yeah.
What attracts you to it?
I just like writing.
I've just learned that that's what I like doing.
And songwriting is a form of writing.
But, for example, now I'm actually writing and finishing off a film that I've written.
And that actually does the same for me.
I'll do a scene on a morning instead of writing a song. _
Otherwise, if I wasn't going to do projects like this in the future,
we'd finish up with _ 200 songs a year, which would be ridiculous.
_ This album, Espresso Logic, that's coming out,
_ is less than a year since the last album.
_ _ And it's actually now reaching a point where the record company are saying,
OK, we'll put another album out, Chris, this autumn.
But [N] please don't phone us up after Christmas and say you've got another record.
Do they get very frustrated with you?
Because you won't do the usual kind of showbiz round of hype and_
We've learned to live with each other now.
They understand that I just don't have a feel _ for _ dressing up and_ Self-promotion.
_selling
something that, really, I find it very boring.
_ I've got a lot of friends who are rock stars.
_ _ And I don't like their life at all.
I think it's quite boring.
So what sort of life do you lead, then?
When you're not on tour and you're not in a studio, what do you do?
Well, if I'm not on tour, I'm actually in the studio or I'm writing. _ _
_ I've got a whole bag there full of ideas_ Yes, yes.
..that
I carry around with me and I'm just doing it all the time.
Apart from that, I do a little bit of that.
Oh, really?
Yes, you must talk about it.
Can I just ask you one more question before that,
before we talk about your motor racing?
_ You're embarrassed by the whole notion of pop stardom
and you steer away from it.
So how do you feel when you go on stage on a tour
and you get the rapturous welcome?
I know you can say they're clapping my music, but they are.
_ They're your fans.
Does that embarrass you?
Do they throw things at you and cheer?
I always feel uncomfortable when I walk up onto a stage.
Do you?
Really? _ _ _ _
_ I'm never looking at the audience.
I'm always thinking, is the guitar buzzing tonight?
Cos I use a very old guitar that doesn't like a lot of the big show lights.
Mm-hm. _ _
Tuning, what's the sound like on stage?
Can I hear Max Middleton, the piano player, properly?
Can he hear me?
Blah, blah, blah.
And when it's all over, it's a sense of relief rather than elation.
He is the ultimate reluctant rock star, isn't he?
The reluctant rock star.
Cos I'm not one.
_ _ You certainly aren't, with that attitude.
Brilliant.
Do I look like one?
No!
No, but come on, let's_
To be honest, on your video you do.
On your video you do, yeah.
Well, you do your best to just go as far as you need to go.
To sell the thing.
Yeah.
_ _ I think you're great.
I think you're really great.
You're a right miserable old so-and-so, the record.
I'm not actually miserable.
I've had two years of that as well, though.
Miserable Chris.
_ _ I'm not even miserable, it's just that_ It's nothing.
I don't want to be a rock star. _ _
You did want to be a racing driver, and you still keep that up.
What are you doing with Nigel Mansell at the weekend?
Well, this was the only way we could think of letting people know
that Chris Ree had a new record out. _
_ _ _ They all sat round and somebody jokingly said,
it's a shame it's not motor racing,
cos we can get him to do anything,
cos he's always in the pits and paddocks of motor racing circuits.
_ _ And someone thought it would be a good idea to get a touring car
and put all over the car that Chris Ree's new album
is called Espresso Logic.
_ And then the subsequent footage, for example,
and you now, have something to talk to me about.
_ _ Yeah, well, all right.
It was almost a desperate idea, really.
Well, I hope you're all right.
Can you drive?
I've got an international licence,
cos I've been doing it for about four years. _
But I'm _ definitely_
It's going to be interesting to see the difference.
And there will be a difference.
What are you going to be driving against Nigel Mansell?
_ I'm driving a BMW, which I only found out yesterday is left-hand drive.
And I'm _ not looking forward to that at all.
_ You don't even_
I mean, although you like Nigel Mansell and everything,
you don't even like the lifestyle he leads, either,
the publicity and the glitz.
I don't know how he does it.
I really don't.
You know, I've often been at circuits for testing,
_ where normally they just go on_
Normally circuit testing _ is very quiet
and there's not many people there.
That's when I prefer to be there.
And you actually find out more about what's happening.
But the Grand Prix_
And the Grand Prix, I tend to leave alone, watch it on the TV anyway.
_ But even on sort of quiet testing days,
when Mansell was in Formula One,
there was a queue of_
I mean, then there was a queue of rock stars and film stars
to see Nigel Mansell.
Yeah, yeah.
And I'm out the back making the tea anyway.
Well, where should people not come to see you on the weekend?
I mean, where would you rather they didn't go? _
Well, the weekend's different, you see,
cos I don't mind making a fool of myself.
Where is it?
Just tell us, cos we're out of time.
It's at Donington.
Donington on Sunday, is it?
On Sunday. What time?
I haven't got a clue.
All right.
So don't go, all right?
Keep well away from Donington on Sunday,
cos he doesn't want to see you.
He'll just be embarrassed.
I tell you what, I think I've put up with a lot
to have that beautiful house in Florida that Nigel Mansell's got.
Yeah.
But you ever fancy that kind of style?
Not at all.
Absolutely not.
I would hate it.
_ _ _ _ How refreshing!
[Ab] _ _ What a guy.
I love him.
Good to see you, Chris.
We'll be hearing you singing Julia at the end of the show.
Honest.
Honest.
And keep it on in the kitchen.
Thank you.
[C] OK.
Right, well,