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Music Interview: Anne Marie Hurst
Anne Marie Hurst
IF the songs on Anne Marie Hurst’s first album in more than two decades have a special potency it’s because the West Yorkshire singer has lived through so much in recent years.
Against a background of bereavement and divorce, she has rediscovered her musical mojo, reuniting with Stan Greenwood and Roger ‘Trotwood’ Nowell, her one-time band mates in the goth group Skeletal Family, and releasing Day of All Days, her first recordings since the break-up of Ghost Dance, her second major group, after a tour with the Ramones in 1989.
The album itself has been two years in the making. Its title comes from an experience at Black Barn, the studio owned by Paul Weller in Surrey. (Trotwood, being the Modfather’s long-time guitar technician, had managed to secure some studio time.) “We had an old manager who came and listened to it, and so many people who I had not seen for years turned up at Paul’s studio,” Anne Marie recalls. “I said to Trotwood the album has got to be called Day of All Days.”
On reflection, the title was one of the few things that stood up to the band’s critical gaze. So they wrote another dozen songs between February and August 2010 then tried again. This time Weller let them stay at his house and even volunteered to play keyboards on the tracks Your Eyes and Dreamy Days. Steve Cradock, of Ocean Colour Scene, another band that Trotwood has worked with, popped in to play piano on the song Mixed Feelings.
Gigs were arranged around the UK, Belgium, Finland, Germany and Spain at which they road-tested new material alongside old favourites from the 80s goth scene. “We thought we’d try to promote the new songs,” says Anne Marie. “We put them in every now and again to see how they went down.”
Eventually they’d amassed “enough for two albums” and Day of All Days was completed at Vale Studios in rural Worcestershire, engineered by Steve Carey, of The Eden House, a musical project with Tony Pettitt, of Fields of the Nephilim. It was mastered in Los Angeles by Howie Weinberg, whose previous clients have included Nirvana, Tom Waits, Aerosmith and Public Enemy. “I was just like, wow, it was absolutely fantastic,” enthuses Anne Marie. “We wanted somebody with some credibility.”
Among the key tracks are Lost in Munich (“We’ve always loved Germany – Ghost Dance was huge there – it was like a welcome back song for us”) and The Angels (“I’ve done a lot of reiki and self-help and massage – it’s about being able to be myself and the freedom to do things that I wanted to do...It’s about somebody who is in a loveless marriage; one day you look in the mirror and thinl, ‘My God, has it come to this?’”).
“Your Eyes was written about my younger brother who committed suicide,” explains Anne Marie. “I had an older brother who did the same. I spent a lot of time with him; I could see how he was changing. He had good days and bad days. You wanted to help them both but mental illness is such a horrible disease. You can’t say you will be ok. It’s all in the mind. Whether they get the right help or the right drugs, it’s a lottery.”
When Weller decided to play on the song – without knowing its background – Anne Marie and her mother were deeply moved.
My Destiny is a tribute to her musical heroes. “A lot of the lines are old songs from David Bowie and The Who and Mott the Hoople.” It was Trotwood who 30 years ago introduced Anne Marie to the ‘Thin White Duke’ when they were teenagers in Keighley. “I idolised Marc Bolan then David Bowie came along. Both the names of [Skeletal Family and Ghost Dance] came from Bowie as well.”
Dollars Drip Blood pays homage to the nation’s troops. “We have so many wars going on, whether you are angry with them or not, it’s so sad our soldiers are going out and fighting. Let’s honour them – without them we would not be where we are today.”
Today Anne Marie says she has “changed completely” from the tomboy she used to be. “To have two brothers who died and Dad at the same time, going through a divorce...now I can hold my head up high.” She’s proud to be back recording and performing. “This is who I’ve always been,” she says. “I hid from it.”
Next week Anne Marie and her band will play a memorial concert to Sophie Lancaster, the young goth tragically murdered in Dewsbury. Tour dates are set to follow.
Jan 14, The Squash Club, Old Westgate, Dewsbury, 7.30pm, £7.50. www.splashmanagement.co.uk
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