MAE MOORE COLLECTED WORKS 1989-1999 BOOKLET EXCERPTS
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Mae Moore on working with Steve Kilbey I had about a half dozen songs written for [Bohemia]. Sony asked me to collaborate with some hotshot writers. They wanted a hit record this time. Oceanview Motel had kind of tested the waters, but they wanted the home run. They suggested I write with people like Eddie Schwartz; heavyweight writers that they've got out of Toronto. I've always thought there were two kinds of writers; commercial writers who focus on getting all the dough and all the hits on the radio, and people like me who just write because they have to. I didn't think I'd be very simpatico; my experience with Loverboy kind of had confirmed that with me. I wasn't opposed to co-writing with someone. I was opposed to who they wanted me to co-write with. I resisted, of course, and they were getting quite fed up with me. Keith, Mike Roth (now head of A&R at Sony Canada), and Sony Publishing in Australia suggested Steve Kilbey from The Church. I thought, 'This is so great. Finally they're offering somebody creative and artistic.' I went down to Australia to meet Kilbey with my half dozen songs. I was there for a month initially, just to see if we'd get along. One of the things I played for him was 'Pieces of Clay'. He really liked that one. We bounced ideas off each other and it seemed to go really well. But, when I got there, I wasn't prepared for the substanced lifestyle that Kilbey was living. It was nightmarish, actually, to physically get to Australia. ... When I finally got there I was picked up by David Sibtain of Sony. He said, 'You're going to be kind of shocked, I think. We've arranged for you to stay in an upstairs room in this flat that Kilbey rents where we have the studio. If you don't like it we'll put you somewhere else.' So, we get to the house and two ex-convicts are living there. The place was crawling with enormous cockroaches and my bed was a mattress on the floor. I'm thinking, 'I don't think I can stay here.' It was just a little too dark and there were hypodermic needles. I mean, I was prepared to have a new experience but not quite to actually live in that. So, they arranged for me to be in the Hotel New Hampshire (The Divinyls lived there) in the red light district in Sydney. It was clean, so I stayed there and I'd walk to the studio in the morning and Kilbey and I would write. Then he'd sleep and I'd write while he slept. That went on for months and we got along really, really well. I think my open tunings intrigued him. They sound really lush and he quite liked that. He wanted to know more about that. ... Sony loved the demos Kilbey and I had done, so I went back to Australia. The studio was very small; one keyboard, a computer, a very small mixing board and a couch. Pryce Surplice was doing all the drum programming and the actual recording and I don't think he got enough credit for that. He and Kilbey had a falling out in the end. Kilbey was always having a falling out with someone or other. Steven was good friends with G.W. McLennan from the Go-Betweens, a very talented songwriter also, but with substance problems at the time as well. Grant would come over and hang out; there were always people stopping by. It was a nice atmosphere. Nobody from the record company came out there. It was the perfect scenario. I mean you couldn't get much farther away. It was wonderful. I'd arrive at the studio in the morning and Kilbey would usually be there already, walking around with his guitar playing a few chords. That's how 'The Wish' was written. I showed up one morning and he was playing the riff. We recorded it; I took it back to my hotel room that night and wrote the lyrics. I have to have trumpet on all my records, so we got Boris Goudonof on trumpet. ... Kilbey, at that time, was in a bad way; really unreliable. This was at the point when we were getting ready to mix the record. He and Pryce had just had this horrible falling out; name-calling and awful stuff. Pryce wanted a better credit on the album than Steven was willing to bestow upon him. Then, Steve just didn't show up for a few days. That's when we got Gavin MacKillop to come down and finish the record. Gavin had worked with Steve before so there was some continuity there. When Kilbey came back to the studio, he was asked to leave because he was being really destructive. I wasn't sure what to make of Gavin. He has a really dark sense of humour, but I liked his ideas and the way he worked hard. Kilbey, meanwhile, never came back. I was disappointed. I was mad at Steven because of what he was doing to himself with heroin, not so much that he let the project down; I was more concerned for him personally. I was really proud of the songs we'd written together. We had a good working relationship. ... About the track Fall with You: |
