Q&A: PETERCOHEN Matthew Krouse Bright Blue is South African musics cutest success story, a band that has bridged form and time. Their lively jive sound, mixed with the rythms of mbaqanga, became popular on the early multiracial music circuit of the 1980s, a time of musical protest to apartheid, coming from even the most middle class, white quarters. Bright Blue was a regular at concerts in aid of organisations like the End Conscription campaign. Cut to the late nineties when the countrys most celebrated black musicians the Soweto String Quartet and Vusi Mahlasela paid homage to Bright Blue with a reworking of their nationally recognisable hit Weeping. This month the band released Every now and then: The best so far, a compilation of its work dating back to 1984. Drummer Peter Cohen has been the driving force behind the project, making the Bright Blue sound accessible once again. Keyboard player Dan Heymann wrote Weeping, now a local standard. How come weve not heard from him for a while? Daniel lives in New York and works for some big financial group. He survived the World Trade Centre attack by an actual hair. He worked on the 96th floor of the north tower. When I was watching it on TV all I thought was, “Daniels toast”. I saw the building going down. For 36 hours we were in a lot of misery even his folks in Cape Town hadnt heard from him. Eventually we got through, and he was late for work. The plane landed on his desk. It was unbelievable. Dan contests that the plane was early rather than he was late for work. He survived and most of his colleagues got wiped out. Were talking quite a lot at the moment, weve got compatible equipment, and were going to start doing some new music over the e-mail. He was the composer but most of the tunes were a group effort. Are there any plans afoot to reform and do some gigs? The first two songs on the album are brand new, we recorded them this year. Were doing some gigs in Cape Town in December basically we havent done a live gig in 7 years. Did you enjoy the Soweto String Quartet and Vusi Mahlaselas version of Weeping?
I liked the fact that they did it. I find it a compliment when anyone covers a song. Its a nice thing. Whether I think its an amazing version? Im not sure. I feel honoured that they did it. Its lekker. But I dont listen to it regularly or anything. But then I dont listen to our version either. Whats it been like, making the album? Its been quite a nice process putting this album together, lining up the tracks next to one another and actually reflecting back on 17 or 18 years and thinking, “this is actually okay, I actually quite like this stuff”. Because when you do it you think, “Jesus this is really shite”. But in retrospect I feel quite proud. Do you think that its more than just a nostalgia-fest? Well, it is a “best-of”, so it is a nostalgia-fest, one cant get away from that. Theres nothing wrong with a bit of nostalgia. We put two new tracks on so that it wasnt a totally boring release for us. We wanted to put something new in the marketplace just to give it a bit more excitement for us to see what people think of our new stuff. The messages are pretty much love-based. From what I can remember the lyrics are very youthful, saying that people can transcend the problems of the day. Is there any new message? I think we were never that serious about our messages they were very much part of what we were all going through anyway. We didnt have choices about what was in our heads in those days. You were either on one side or the other. lifes different now. I dont think we were heavily into messages then, but we were getting messages about what we were writing about without even trying.
Do you think theres a good chance that you may have to remind people who you were?
Well thats what Im doing now. Whats been amazing is that people have been willing to talk to me. I thought they would have said, “whore you? Bright Blue? please…” Weeping, the Mahlasela version, is a kind of unofficial national anthem. Thats why people are still willing to talk to us thats whats given us the longevity. I cant deny that. Bands like Ella Mental or Tribe After Tribe never had a Weeping. How does it feel to be the guy the people that made the unofficial national anthem? At the time we were so unaware of the fact that Weeping was going to happen. It was a song we recorded in one night in Joburg. It was a very special evening. We didnt even think it would get on the radio. We didnt even think it would be popular. Its slow; its a bit of a dirge. We loved it but we didnt think it had legs really. In fact we thought it was the B side of the single that we were doing at the time. But then exactly the opposite happened. For us, when the Mahlasela version did come out to hear the chords of Nkosi Sikelele on SABC for us it was our moral victory. For us it was like, “wow! we won, we won that round”. Has Weeping made you rich at all? Not rich, but it does earn us money. Do you get a cheque every month? Maybe every six months we get cheques from Samro. There was a very good year when the Soweto String Quartet put it on an album and it sold a lot in Australia and it was on the radio, and it was on the radio by QZoo. Itll come again. But you cant stop your day job. My day job is music. Im running a small company called Bright Productions. We do documentary soundtracks; we do some jingles, some producing of other artists.
Would you rather just be an artist yourself? No. Thats why were still together, thats why we still enjoy it. Thats why we still make music. We would not be friends anymore if that was all we were doing. You live in one anothers pockets every day. Its not lekker. Its found a nice place in our daily existence. Its like a fun thing. The details Big Blue will launch their long-awaited album Every Now And Then at the Independent Armchair Theatre in Observatory on December 17. For details call 021 461 8950/1