The Big Interview:Eddi Reader

EDDI Reader can talk. Boy, can she talk. The singer has just got back from a two and a half week tour of the States and she should be shattered. Her plane landed at 6am and now it's 10pm. I'm worried she will be too tired to chat, but she isn't. She is fired up from a US tour that went better than she could have hoped and, given half a chance, she could talk about it all night. "It's like an untapped goldmine for me over there," says Reader, clearly excited. "I thought I'd be playing to people who didn't have a clue who I am, but some of them knew every song. They had bought all my albums. It was unbelievable. It was so flattering to find out I've made an impact in a country I've never really been to before."

It has been over a decade since Eddi Reader quit Fairground Attraction and 13 years since the band's first single, 'Perfect', topped the UK charts. As a solo artist, Reader has released five albums, some more successful than others, but none nearly as big as Fairground Attraction's double Brit Award-winning debut, First Of A Million Kisses. By rights, Reader should be a bit downhearted. In fact, she could hardly be happier. She's a 41-year-old, single mother of two (a 12 and an 8-year-old), who has spent half her life making music, but when she talks about the US tour, she sounds like she's just starting out as a singer.

"The American shows were such fun," she says. "I did my Scottish, New Year's Eve party routine. You know, told a few stories about love and loss and life in a council estate, ad-libbed my lyrics and chatted to the audience. I found myself pulling on resources I hadn't used since I was 20 years old."

Last spring, it was a different story. Reader - who has been based in London for the last 12 years, but is about to move back to her native Glasgow - was sick of the music business. She was without a record deal and she didn't care. She was seriously considering what she calls her Life Plan B - becoming a child psychologist. Then her percussionist, Roy Dodds, persuaded her to record some songs in his house. "No big studio bills, no music biz malarkey, no pressure," says Reader. "It was totally spontaneous and unrehearsed. I took round a free microphone someone had given me, we sat having tea and croissants and, almost unconsciously, I started singing. Roy made sure everything was recorded and when we listened back to what we'd done, I realised we had made some lovely sounds, some lovely songs. You could hear it was just someone singing in a room, totally free, rather than stuck in a studio box."

Reader's longtime writing partner, Boo Hewerdine, came down from Cambridge and, in a few weeks, they completed what became Simple Soul, her latest album. Jeff Travis, a big Reader fan, heard Simple Soul and asked to put it out on his label, Rough Trade. In the States, a record company called Compass released it and, in Japan, it was licensed by Universal. Suddenly, Reader was back in business. What's more, she was enjoying herself for the first time in years.

"It had been odd making an album in this country, considering how I feel about the music industry here," she says. "I hate what it does to artists. I know I can stand on stage with an acoustic guitar and knock people's socks off, but when I make an album, I'm forced to reduce the songs to a commercial formula - verse/chorus/middle eight - something the record companies think will get played on the radio.

"To be honest, I didn't think anyone would listen to Simple Soul. It's by far the boldest album I've made. It's just me summarising everything that's happened to me in the last year - watching my kids grow up, trying to pay the mortgage etc. But it got great reviews. Everyone seemed to get it. I feel vindicated. I always said there were people out there who liked real music, rather than manufactured crap. You just have to give them a chance to hear it."

In the United States, radio stations are picking up on Simple Soul. One station flew her out in February to play a live concert. She got an American agent - her first ever - and only now is able to capitalise on the interest her songs have stirred up. Clearly, it's a boost. But not, she says, because she sees dollar signs.

"I've never been interested in money or mainstream success," she says. "That's what ruined Fairground Attraction. Fame and money do funny things to people. Everyone gets greedy."

The daughter of a welder, Reader grew up in a tenement in Glasgow. Her parents were huge Elvis fans and her aunties played her The Beatles, but it wasn't until the family were moved to Irvine that she knew she wanted to be a singer. "When I was 17, I went to Irvine folk club," she recalls. "I had never heard folk music before. I had never heard unaccompanied singing and storytelling songs, certainly not sung in a Scottish accent. That's when I realised it was something I could do."

After a stint at Glasgow Art School, Reader became a busker, travelled around Europe with a circus and returned to Britain, where she became a backing singer for the likes of Gang of Four, Eurythmics and Alison Moyet. She hooked up with guitarist Mark Nevin, formed Fairground Attraction and, within three years, was at the top of the charts with skiffle-pop song, 'Perfect'.

"I had a really romantic ideal of music," says Reader. "I still do. I wanted the songs to be more important than we were. I hated the godlike status of rock musicians in the Eighties - all the smoke machines and shoulder pads. I wanted to write songs that could stand on their own, that I could sing without instruments, without a microphone even. That hasn't changed, but I have. In Fairground Attraction, I used to hide behind big glasses, wear wigs and silly plastic skirts. The idea was to distract attention from me, but of course, it did exactly the opposite. I now know how to communicate with an audience - be direct, be honest, no tricks, nothing between you and them. And you know what? It's never felt better."

Writer: Lisa Verrico

from Scotland on Sunday.com, May 27, '01

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