FLYING IN THE FACE OF FASHION

October 25 2007

Gilbert O'Sullivan left his homeland at the age of seven, so it's surprising when you speak to him for the first time to notice that he still retains a slight hint of his native Waterford."People say I sound Irish," he tells me, as if he can't quite believe it himself. "It's other people that tell me the lilt is there - it just shows you the root is strong."

Perhaps it's not so surprising - coming from a big Irish family, he has always retained the link back home and has been a regular visitor over the years.

Gilbert lives in Jersey now, but he retains a fondness for Swindon, the town where he grew up and attended art college for four years, and where his mother still lives.

"I see Swindon as our family home - every time we're in England we go to our mother's. All my memories of growing up are to do with Swindon."

Swindon has long been seen as an unglamorous place by outsiders, but as someone who knows the town well, Gilbert is baffled by its poor reputation.

"I don't get it," he says. "I would never knock our home town."

He does realise, though, that the perception of Swindon to many outsiders is formed by the rows of soulless office buildings they can see from the M4.

"Of course there are stupid things going on there," he acknowledges, "and there's no doubt that its access to Heathrow makes it a valuable asset to companies who want to put up these dreadful industrial buildings.

"But I loved growing up in Swindon. I loved going to college, and my friends, and the bands I was in. When I go home I sometimes walk into the centre of town - the old town is pretty much still the same, but the new has drastically changed."

Gilbert's first steps in his musical career were taken when he was a teenager.

"We always had a piano in the house, and my musical interest started with the radio. I got into a band after the Beatles. I mean, everybody wanted to be in a band after the Beatles. I had my old school band called the Prefects."

And one of his early musical collaborators was Rick Davies, who went on to form the hugely successful band Supertramp.

"Then I joined another band, and we developed into a serious, semi-professional outfit called Rick's Blues, along with one of the founding members of Supertramp. It started off just for fun, but became a bit more serious as time went by."

So by the time Rick and Gilbert went their separate ways a few years later, Gilbert already had a strong musical foundation, and he headed to London to try to make it as a solo artist. I wonder if he was always convinced that he would be successful.

"Oh, I knew I would make it," he says unwavering. "The arrogance of youth. It's very important - you need that arrogance when you're young."

Buoyed by his confidence in his material, Gilbert also took full control of his image. He adopted an unusual and distinctive look, with shorts, boots and a cloth cap.

"If I didn't think the material was good, I would never have dressed up in the image that I created. I would never have done that if it had been lighthearted material.

"But because I wrote good songs, I knew that the contrast with the image was going to work.

"By the mid-Sixties, with flower-power and everything, it was impossible to do anything other than have long hair and jeans. So I had to go to the other extreme, to create something that was not necessarily good to look at, but was different," he laughs.

But after his huge Seventies successes with enduring hits like Alone Again (Naturally) and Clair, Gilbert was forced to take an unexpected break from music. He spent several years battling with his record company MAM over royalties, and although he eventually won, it took him out of the musical spotlight for much of the Eighties.

But only a couple of years later he became involved in another legal case. The US rapper Biz Markie used a sample of Alone Again (Naturally) without permission, and Gilbert sued - and again, won.

This wasn't because Gilbert has any problem with rap music as a whole - he rejected Biz Markie as he didn't want his poignant, serious song to be used in a comedy context.

"We rejected the Biz Markie thing because he was a humorist, that was the only reason. Interestingly enough, there's a young rapper in America called Lenny Marino who has just sent me a cover where he has sampled the guitar solo from Alone Again (Naturally). And it's really good."

All in all it's been a tumultuous time, but Gilbert does know that what he has gone through will help to protect other musicians in the future.

Since the precedent was set by Gilbert's case in 1991, it has been used by artists including Sting, Elton John and George Michael.

Since his early days, Gilbert has been renowned as a lyricist as well a crafter of pop tunes, and he explains how his songwriting process works.

"The thing about creating music is that it just happens. There's no GCSE in writing music. Most contemporary songwriters, right from the days of Lennon and McCartney, learned it by a love of popular music. They loved Buddy Holly, Elvis, the songs they were playing on the radio, and that led to them being able to write their own songs."

And the same applies to Gilbert, although it's probably fair to say that not all musicians share his work ethic.

"I'm very disciplined as a songwriter. I'll spend eight hours a day, five days a week, sitting at the piano playing, looking for a tune.

"If you don't get it it's not a wasted exercise because you're practising. You get a tune and put it away and then get another one. Then when you come to make a record you choose the ones you like and start the lyric process."

He speaks so enthusiastically about how he writes that it certainly doesn't sound anything like work.

Gilbert confirms that he still loves writing and playing, and even suggests that the creative process can keep you young at heart.

"I love it. When you write songs you do it the same way you did nearly 40 years ago. Technology doesn't alter the fact that you sit at a piano, so you feel as a songwriter you haven't aged. But of course as a person, you can't deny you are the age you are."

In fact, being older has its benefits, as Gilbert has a lifetime of experiences and observations that he can pour into his music.

"As a lyricist being 60 years of age, you can still write good love songs, but you have to be third person when it comes to young love."

He enjoys writing as an observer and getting into the skin of characters he has created, although occasionally people have read too much into his lyrics.

"We have a song on this new album called Taking Sides. My two daughters only heard it when it was finished - one is 23 and the other is 26 - and they were horrified because they thought it was about us."

The song's lyrics are about an older couple's marriage problems, and although it's not autobiographical it does use Gilbert's own life experiences as a starting point.

"I'd seen my wife with the girls when they were growing up, taking them to school and all over the place, and suddenly when they went away to university the vacuum was there. I just put that into a situation I made up."

Gilbert reassured his daughters about the true provenance of the song, but in a testament to the power of his music it's still not a tune that they enjoy hearing.

"They still don't like it," he says, "even though it's not about us."

Fans going along to see Gilbert at the Colston Hall next month can expect to hear plenty of songs from his great new album during the first half of the performance, with the classic Seventies hits popping up after the interval.

"We've got more than two hours to cover the new songs, old songs, unfamiliar songs, familiar songs," he says enthusiastically.

"We have a string quartet and a rhythm section and it makes for, I hope, an enjoyable evening."

Gilbert O'Sullivan plays the Colston Hall on Sunday, November 4. Tickets cost £19.50 and £24.50 - call 0117 922 3686.

Thanks David

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