Three more from Steve:

Keep Going is my favourite Duffy album. How do you rate it amongst the many excellent albums that you have released?

I like it. I don't consider them in competition with each other. They are just what I'm up to at the moment. I don't think I'm going to do a Lilac album or a music in color style album I just record what's coming out. I didn't know if this was even an album for a few months. I didn't know if the songs were there. I was pleased that they were. I knew it was a good one when Claire told me it was.

On TLT.COM you mentioned that you were looking to re-release the original Lilac Time Albums. You have said before that you were dissapointed with how Paradise Circus was put out and that it was originally planned as a double Album (called Tree?). Are you intending for the Paradise Circus re-release to be more in keeping with the way you had envisaged it to be before Fontana put on the pressure (i.e. Double Album with lots of Nicks stuff and the Malvern Hills artwork)?

Yes, I'd release everything as it was intended. The re-releases have stalled for the moment as Universal have asked for too much money. It seems strange for them to want an advance from me as they will be distributing them through Folk Modern . But hey rock 'n' roll's a crazy business, ain't it?

Dreaming is the most un-Lilac Time song you released. I presume there is a version of Dreaming that was completed before Hypnotone twiddled with it, although It didn't appear on Astronauts +. Will we ever get to hear Dreaming in its Lilac Time dream like state?

I never finished the Lilac version of Dreaming before it was destroyed, I mean reinterpreted by Hypnotone. I think I may have a demo somewhere. . . so maybe you'll hear it. But I prefer making new albums rather than this complicated dealing with business affairs shenanigans you seem to have to go through to have anything to do with one's own work. You would have thought they'd all be pleased as punch. But hey etc.

[posted 22.08.03]

Actually I'm a huge fan of Alphaville. and I was very surprised to find Stephen's name in last Alphaville's album. and well... I know Stephen only from The Devils :) I was interested to know what was Stephen's part in that Alphaville's song "The state of dreams" so I did search and found out that Marian Gold used 4 lines from Galaxy. And my questions for Stephen are: How does it feel when somebody uses part of your lyrics? Have you heard that song "The state of dreams"? and if yes - what do you think about it? about your lyrics in it? And what do you think of Alphaville in general? - Elena from Russia

I thought it was quite strange to hear the lyrics of Galaxy in another setting. It was very polite of them to ask. Who knows where all of this stuff comes from. If those lines are original (and I think they are) they are among the best I've ever written. Love is such a fractured thing it's splinters slither in our skin. . . I don't know of Alphaville or their work.

[posted 22.08.03]

Here are two from Joel :

These days, what constitutes a 'Stephen Duffy' track and what constitutes a 'Lilac Time' track (and how about a 'Stephen Duffy & The Lilac Time' track)?

This album was going to be a solo acoustic album. Pretty much all like Home. But I tired of it. I hate doing my own backing vocals and love singing with Claire. Then I decided to use Nothing Can last and 12 Tones which are performed by the Lilac Time and then I felt like I had to get Melvin in so the concept was lost. And so it became Stephen Duffy and the Lilac Time. I usually think that if Nicks there it's the Lilac Time.

In the 8 page booklet that came with the '85 12" release of Kiss Me, there is an interview that makes reference to something called the 'Zella bootlegs' - do these actually exist and, if so, what are they?

Between WEA &Virgin I recorded an albums worth of demos at a studio in Birmingham called Zella. I think they are on a cassette in my mothers shed. It was at the time I was trying to sing like a twat and succeeding so they will stay in the shed.

[posted 22.08.03]

Graham one-ups Jason with 5 questions, digging into the history:

Stephen, I was interested to read that that lovely song "The Silence" dates back to the "Paradise Circus" era and I was wondering have you got many other songs that are complete but somehow didn't make it onto the relevant releases at the time which might see light of day some time in the future or is it more likely that any new material would be just that - totally new?

I think I have 40 or 50 unreleased songs knocking about from 86 onwards, maybe more if i had a good old nose around. Unless one leaps out at me like The Silence I kind of presume they are dead.

My 2nd question is possibly a slightly more difficult one, but one I'm sure all us fans would love to know the answer to: having had so many set-backs when it comes to recording deals, were you *really* considering giving up in 1999 prior to "Looking for a day..."? (Needless to say, please, please don't EVER!!) and does the comparative lack of commercial success annoy you in any way?

Yes I thought I'd just be a songwriter but I missed the oneness of doing one owns [sic] thing. Writing the book seemed like a good substitute but it was too depressing and that's why I never published it. i thought it was too much of a downer. Of course the next couple of albums are too but at least they have tunes. Ocasionally I think it would be nice to sell some records but I've been pretty realistic since Music in Colors and Duffy bombed. 14 consecutive non charting albums can keep a mans feet on the ground.

Question no.3 asks you to recall those early Tin Tin days: Did you ever play live anywhere to promote either of the first two albums?

No my manager sucked. He told me I'd only loose [sic] money touring. So when the Lilacs hit the road I sucked, I was so out of practise. It's taken me 17 years to get it together.

Are you enjoying performing live nowadays more so than previously? The recent gig/in-stores were absolutely wonderful and it would be nice to know you were getting as much out of doing it all as we were in watching your hard efforts.

I enjoy it in a perverse way. I enjoy the instores and solo things because I know it's the very hardest thing to do and to do well. I would prefer it if i didn't make so many mistakes. But at lot of the songs were such a long time ago. . .

Finally a difficult question probably to answer, but looking back on such a prolific career, I was wondering what time or album do you most recall most fondly?

Looking For A Day was kind of romantic. In the garage in the middle of nowhere as autumn crept in. And finishing it off here at Air. Singing with Claire for the first time and getting Melvin in. I engineered a lot of that album too so it sounds more like me than others. I engineered a lot of this one as well. Most of my records have been accompanied by relationship confusion, substance abuse, record company meddling or lack of record companies for any of them to be recalled with any degree of fondness.

[posted 18.08.03]

Steve asks two:

What type of banjo does Nick play (is it a guitar banjo?) I said it was a dull question!

Nick has a five string banjo and a 4 string banjo. I'll ask him if they have names.

What was with the large baseball cap Stephen wore at at CSH Gig? An equally irrelevant question I'm sure that you will agree.

Red Deer Alberta said the cap. I have never been there. I was saddened to hear that trucker style caps may have had their five minutes at height of fashion so I bought the largest one I could find. I also have an Alton Towers one. There were very nearly Keep Going ones. I have lived for the moment when these hats and folk music would be fashionable simultaneously. Whatever next?

[posted 18.08.03]

What are a few of the least autobiographical songs you've written? Or is there always a dose of fiction in your diary? - Geri

All kind of autobiographical. London Girls isn't on the face of it but then is really. I was living in Camden etc. Miriam and Vivian were good pals. . .

[posted 18.08.03]

Geraldine has also mentioned on DL that back in 96/97 you did a column with Details magazine in which you listed your favorite eating places. Perhaps you can regale us with a more current list, plus foods?

Almost completely vegetarian. I never cook fish but still ocasionally eat it in restaurants. I have old seventies health food recipe books which we would now consider fatal. I'm quite a whizz with a lentil. These days I tend to concentrate on the gravy. The girls love it. I make my own mint sauce. They want my children. Japanese food is still my favourite. They don't cook the fish and serve the white wine is boiling hot, it's hilarious. . .

[posted 18.08.03]

Roy writes - Many of us have dreams in which certain musical, literary, sport or screen heroes suddenly appear. When I was 10, back in the early eighties, Adrian "Inchy" Heath appeared in a dream and confided that he would soon be leaving Stoke City F.C. to go to another club (not disclosed). He wasn't up for transfer as far as I knew, but astonishingly, two weeks after I awoke from that particular dream, Inchy joined Everton. You, yourself, have appeared incongruously alongside my family members, friends and work colleagues in a range of dreams I've had in the past. It would feel like a betrayal to reveal here exactly what you said on those occasions, though I am prepared to say that in one particular dream, Harry Nilsson was also present, and you and he were both wearing Davy Crockett hats, with racoon tails trailing, and you both seemed very drunk. I had that dream the night before taking my final exam at University. Anyway, what I'm wondering is, is the converse true: do Stephen Duffy's fans ever appear in Stephen Duffy's dreams? And if they do, what do we tell you?

I have made Anita Pallenburgs solo album and have witnessed many scenes of apocalypse. I've been in Jungian analysis for 9 years. Although I write and record in dreams I am hardly ever in concert and so audience participation is non existant [sic].

[posted 18.08.03]

Jason asks a plethora of questions:

Which poet(s)/lyricists have been most inspiring to you over the years?

Kerouac - Ginsberg - All of Leonard Cohen lyrics and poems and the novels too. Stephen Spender - Wystan Hugh - Tim Hardin - Bob Dylan (So many amazing songs and eras. The last two albums are stunning) - I like Hemingway &Fitzgerald. Patti Smiths poems and songs - I saw her on monday and was listening to Gone Again this morning. Those early Updike stories. Joni Mitchels lyrics especially on The Hissing of Summer Lawns. A.A.Milne. Mick Jagger was the closest we came to a Dylan when he was pretending to be Dylan. Reading a bit of Robert Graves at the moment but I don't know if it's inspiring me. . .

What current singer songwriters impress you most at the moment?

Cat Power - You Are Free is wonderful. The Covers Record is one of the best records certainly of the nineties. I like Alisdair Roberts who used to be in Apendix Out - his new album is great. Battening The Hatches by Mount Egypt is extraordinary he is a truly unique artist and voice. The last Steve Malkmus and the Jicks record was a fave, that's right. I'm not as mad on the Postal Service as everyone else.

Which songs are your current favourites on 'Keep Going'?

I haven't listened to it since I finished it and don't intend to.

Are there any more possible collaborations between yourself and other artists planned for the near future?

That would be telling, wouldn't it?

[posted 13.08.03]

John from Atlanta GA asks - Will stephen tour the US ?

I wont tour but I will play the odd show. Very odd. (*cough* play Washington D.C. *cough* - ed.)

[posted 13.08.03]

Stephen's voice has changed for Keep Going - and was very noticeable at the Cecil Sharpe gig - it is sweeter, stronger, more emotional............ - is this a result of giving up the cigarettes or is there another reason? - Paula

I've noticed it too. I feel a lot surer of who I am and that I can just be who I am and that's going to be fine and that's why folk come and see me. I think this show was much better than even the last Cecil show. But the shop pa [sic] in Glasgow was great too and that was only to 20 or 30 people. Maybe I'm happier or more relaxed.

[posted 13.08.03]

How did An Open Book not make it onto an official release until appearing, by mistake, on Keep Going? ie, it's such an excellent song. - Michael

Nothing Can Last was also left off lilac6. If songs don't come out right straight away it is sometimes hard to keep the faith. But in this case I think I just hadn't got the vocal right in time to make the cut for lilac6. I changed the lyrics a little too at the end of the middle eight. Then I felt it was old and didn't fit with the mood of the newer songs on Keep Going. I did write it in a goldrush town in Alaska, I think I mention it on stephenduffy.com. I put that middle bit in when iI was recording lilac6. So it has been around since 93 or 94. Mind you The Silence was left off Paradise Circus. I'd forgotten all about it until just before Christmas when i found the lyric in an old folder. I wish it hadn't come out on the record as it's [sic] rather ruined it's inclusion on the Pop Renaissance album. I also think it must be on the first four thousand copies as no one seems to have got one without it yet. Folk Hours is still an unmixed lilac6 track. That was left off as it was an instrumental and that's Nicks job. It will be on the e.p.

[posted 13.08.03]

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