Tom Robinson Interview And Gig Preview - Wakefield

It will be 40 years this autumn since the Tom Robinson Band released the classic track 2-4-6-8 Motorway. As a solo artist Tom Ronbinson went on to release War Baby and has co written tracks with Elton John and Peter Gabriel. Now as a radio broadcaster Tom hosts 3 shows a week on BBC Radio 6.

To mark the 40th annivesary of the 2-4-6-8 Motorway Tom will be performing live the entire Power In The Darkness album with a four piece line up.

On the eve of the gig I caught up with Tom where he reveals his thoughts on the current music scene and also a Yorkshire connection.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE WITH YOUR FIRST APPEARANCE ON TOP OF THE POPS WITH 2468?

It was like a dream come true. In the 60s Top of the Pops was one of the fundamental sources of music for my generation of rural pop kids before radio one came along. Our band were all unemployed and signing on for the first nine months of our existence. Then we suddenly signed to EMI and within six weeks we had gone from dole office to Top of the Pops. As we watched famous bands like Slade rehearsing on the same show, the guitarist Danny and I looked at each other and said "we are going to get found out aren't we"... it was classic imposter syndrome - we felt there was no possible way we actually deserved to be there on that all-important show where we had seen all our heroes over the previous 15 years...

BY 1983 YOU HAD MOVED TO EAST BERLIN, WAS IT HARD COMING BACK TO THE MUSICAL SCENE IN THE EARLY 80s?

Actually moving to Germany was the best thing I could have done - I wrote War Baby while I was there, and it eventually paid off enough of my debts for me to move back to the UK. With success the first time around, I had believed all the wild promises and enticements of the music industry, and was duly shattered when they proved to be illusions. When I moved back from Germany, I knew how important it was to take all that stuff with a huge pinch of salt. It helps keep my feet on the ground. That, and psychotherapy :-)

THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS DIFFERENT NOW WITH MUSIC BEING SO FREELY AVAILABLE, DO YOU THNK IT IS A GOOD THING?

As a consumer I like the fact that almost any song I've ever heard in my life can be playing on my phone within 20 seconds - thanks to Youtube and Spotify. As an artist I like the fact that my back catalogue is out there available for a whole new generation of music enthusiasts to discover if they want to. In the days of vinyl and CD your albums would get deleted by the record company as soon as they stopped selling through the shops, and the master tapes would be buried in a vault somewhere. I'd much rather my work was being heard rather than not heard. Of course as an artist I don't get paid much (if anything) now people can listen to it for free. But then back in the day the vast majority of artists never, ever recouped their advances/recording costs and never saw a penny in royalties anyway. As you say we now inhabit a completely changed landscape with upsides and downsides - but on the whole, yes - it's a very good thing.

IN 1977 THE SINGLES CHART WAS FULL OF MANUFACTURED ACTS, 40 YEARS ON WITH THE LIKES OF THE X FACTOR IT FEELS THE SAME NOW AS THEN?

Actually I don't think either 1977 or 2017 are particularly unusual from that point of view. As far as I recall - having lived through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and noughties - there have always been manufactured pop acts - whether it's the Monkees or Milli Vanilli. The Top Five is never a very accurate indicator of the innovations happening in the wider world of music; some of historys most important acts only made the lower reaches of the chart. The Clash only made it into the Top Ten in 1991 after a Levis ad. The New York Dolls, Stooges and Velvet Underground never made it into the charts at all.

WHAT NEW ARTISTS' ACTS EXCITE YOU AT THE MOMENT?

Well not all of these are new, but they're all making amazing work right now: Fjokra, Kate Tempest, Fantastic Negrito, Slaves, The Vryll Society, Nadine Shah to name but a few...

DO YOU GET CHANCE TO GO TO ANY LIVE GIGS THESE DAYS?

Apart from specific festivals and showcase events, I tend not to. Having been a fulltime working musician from age 23 to age 53, I spent an awful lot of time in an awful lot of venues over those decades at my own gigs and other peoples. So nowadays in my late sixties, getting deafened at a club on the offchance Band A or Band B might turn out to be brilliant isn't that appealing as a way to spend my nights off.

IS THE CASTAWAY CLUB STILL GOING STRONG?

It's a small, private and highly active as a Facebook group these days - the great advantage is that the members can talk directly with each other rather than depending on us sending out centralised newsletters as in the old days. Details on how to join the group here: http://bit.ly/castawaysfb

DON'T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER WAS A GREAT SONG, HAS AGE AND WISDOM CHANGED YOUR OUTLOOK ON LIFE?

Nah, not really. The wisdom of age is a big fat myth. Most of us oldsters are still making it up as we go along, same as everybody else. That said, four decades on from writing that song Ray Davies came in and recorded a two hour interview as an honoured guest for my radio show. We learn from experience and act accordingly, but holding grudges is more damaging to the grudgeholder than to the grudgee. The dispute that song was written about happened 40 years ago, and in another 40 we'll both be long dead. What does any of it matter.

YOU ARE PLAYING A GIG IN WAKEFIELD SOON, ANY MEMORABLE YORKSHIRE GIGS?

Last time I played Wakefield was in 1995, where the post-gig partying was so memorable I wrote a song about it. (Congo Blue from the 1996 Having It Both Ways album: https://tomrobinson.bandcamp.com/track/congo-blue-2). I've always had a soft spot for York itself, where my Dad met my mum at De Greys during the war - I remember some brilliant nights playing band shows at Fibbers during the 90s. It's also great to be returning with a full band to Sheffield - where we had a stonking acoustic show last year at The Greystones...

WRITER, PERFORMER, BROADCASTER, LGBT ACTIVIST, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BEST REMEMBERED FOR?

Radio broadcasts go out into the world and they're gone. Same for live gigs. You can never capture them even with a recording. Activism aims to change the world, but the world never stops changing and the struggle moves on. So in the end, all you have left is the songs. The Radio 2 playlist computer has just three of mine: 2-4-6-8 Motorway, Glad To Be Gay and War Baby - if people only remember me as the bloke who wrote those, that'll make me happy.

Yorkshire Tour Dates:

Tuesday 17 October 2017 at 7.30pm
Wakefield Unity Works

Wednesday 18 October 2017
The Crescent, York

Friday 20 October 2017
Leadmill, Sheffield