6. Miles DavisBitches Brew
As a late teenager I got told who Miles Davis was, then I saw that album cover and thought, ‘What the fuck?’ Then I listened to it, and found out more about it, and the Isle Of Wight Festival show, and became obsessed. His record company had had huge success with him doing a certain thing, they wanted him to keep wearing the suit and stay with the same instrumentation, and I love the statement of saying, ‘No, I’m going to do something that none of you are going to like’. What Miles Davis required of his band was so interesting, it was just like, ‘go along with how this feels, as opposed to wrong notes and right notes’. I’ve got the 40th anniversary boxset which has all the outtakes on it. They recorded shitloads of stuff, and out of that came these moments of magic. And because no one is really sure where they’re going, it sounds immediate and doesn’t date. It always sounds like it was recorded 15 minutes ago, and I’ll always play it for that reason.
As you say, it was a record where he was pushing back against expectation. Do you think your career shows a similar instinct?
The way I see it is that at the end of it all, when you aren’t concerned with fashion, expectations, what’s cool and what isn’t, and how you’re going to make the most money, you’re going to be left with the stuff that you’ve done. And if you’re embarrassed by it, then that’s a fucking tough situation to end up in. So that has been at the back of my mind, and hopefully I’ve always just done the stuff that I’m interested in, that I would like to listen to and that I would like to see. If I’m going to spend all this time on it, it’s got to be stuff that I’m happy with.
