A CHAT WITH: ELIZABETH MCGOVERN
aaamusic | On 10, Dec 2012
Elizabeth McGovern is well known as an established film, television and theatre actor but also as a musician. She’s the singer-songwriter and guitarist who fronts the band Sadie and the Hotheads. Interviewer Anthony Weightman chatted to her ahead of her new tour in February, 2013.
Anthony Weightman
Firstly, my very best wishes to you as a musician on your forthcoming tour with Sadie & The Hotheads in February. I believe your grandfather was an adventurer, possibly the inspiration behind Indiana Jones. As a musician do you feel you’ve inherited the character of an adventurer? A sense of fun? Fearlessness? Courage?
Elizabeth McGovern
I’d love to think so, though it really hadn’t occurred to me before you suggested it, to be honest. I suppose you could correlate the two. I might be responding to something deep within my genetic make up that I’m not really aware of. I’m just really trying to organise the next gig for the band. That’s all I’m thinking about.
Anthony Weightman
You’ve said that, if you hang around long enough you give up having regrets. Does that tend to be your philosophy, that you disregard the hard knocks and then move on quickly with your life and career?
Elizabeth McGovern
Yes, I think that I’m at an age where you realise that time isn’t unlimited any more. You start to see there’s a ticking clock and at some point it will be over. It becomes imperative not to waste any of it. So, in that sense, it’s the best advice in the world to just put aside investing energy into things you can do nothing about and get on with enjoying yourself and the people and the opportunities that come your way. So, I think that the privilege of reaching the age of fifty is that you’re given this gift which is a realisation that you might as well just enjoy the second half of what’s left in your life. So, that’s the road I’m embarking on now.
Anthony Weightman
Your music is perhaps country, folk, jazz and rock. You’ve said in the past that you find classical music intimidating. There’s a movement which has headed towards Britain from San Francisco called classical revolution. It’s really about fusing it with other ideas. There’s a view that the image of classical music has become stuffy and aloof and really needs to be presented more accessibly away from concert halls and into clubs and pubs. What do you feel about that idea?
Elizabeth McGovern
I think it’s fabulous. For me, I love a fresh approach to any kind of music and I sometimes think there’s so much organised support for music we’ve already heard before. Already tried and accepted by people. There isn’t quite enough of a cultural support network for people who are trying to do something new, to give audiences something unexpected and not what they’ve heard a million times before. Looking at my relatively short experience in the business of performing music, audiences are so happy to plonk down money to hear the same things that they heard every year or to go back to the music they knew as teenagers and they’re still afraid to take a chance on anything new. So, I appreciate it when people are willing to step out of their comfort zone and listen to something presented in a new way. They may or may not like it, but the exercise of taking the risk can be rewarding to people.
Anthony Weightman
I know you’re a Joni Mitchell fan. If an artist has established a reputation in a particular field, it’s sometimes difficult for them to be taken seriously in some very different creative field, no matter how good they actually are. For example, Joni Mitchell once put down her acoustic guitar and took up painting. Can you relate to this sort of problem?
Elizabeth McGovern
Well, yes. I think that is true. Anybody who’s in the business of selling their artistic vision has to put on blinders and just continue with what they feel inspired to do and hope that an audience will accept it. But, if they resist it, it’s not personally something I can afford to take on and make personal. I would probably resist the idea of adjusting my expectation if someone was doing something different. I understand what that’s all about. But, there’s not much I can do except continue to do the music I have a strong belief in and hope that I can bring people around.
Anthony Weightman
You’re also a Leonard Cohen fan, I believe. There’s an amusing Suzanne Vega story that, when you’re getting to know someone, if you ask “do you like Leonard Cohen?” you look for the reply “oh yes, I do like Leonard Cohen but only in certain moods”. The theory is that a well balanced American likes to present themselves as positive and upbeat, rather than sad and lonely. Have you come across a conversation like this?
Elizabeth McGovern
Yes, I think that’s the fun of pop culture. It’s a way of getting to know someone else by learning what their appreciations are. You can short cut a very lengthy method of getting to know someone by asking a few key questions.
Anthony Weightman
Donald Sutherland is an actor loved by many musicians. Kate Bush found him very dynamic and encouraging when they made a short film together to support her song “Cloudbusting”. Your first film debut was with Donald Sutherland in Ordinary People. What memories do you personally have of him?
Elizabeth McGovern
I don’t have many of working with him because, on that film, we never shared a room or had a scene together. So, my memory is me leaving the set and him entering it. But, he is a man with a lot of personal gravitas in the room and he’s one of those people who suggests depth and interesting layers to his personality. So that did strike me, even though I didn’t have a chance to get to know him.
Anthony Weightman
One hugely talented jazz musician and film composer was Dudley Moore. I know you once acted with him in the film Lovesick. If he was still around now, could you imagine him doing a guest slot with Sadie & The Hotheads?
Elizabeth McGovern
Oh my god! Nothing would make me happier.
Anthony Weightman
Underwater playing a piano perhaps?
Elizabeth McGovern
Yea! Wouldn’t that be nice.
Anthony Weightman
Is there something you’ve had to do creatively which stands out in your memory as being particularly difficult at the time. For example, some actresses say playing Ophelia in Hamlet is one of the most demanding roles you can play.
Elizabeth McGovern
I think for me, both as an actress and in my initial foray into performing music, the very difficult thing was to figure out how to do it at the beginning. That first walk up to the microphone when I’d never played the guitar before. Probably the longest walk of my life. I liken it to the man leaping out of the crane beyond the sonic stratosphere and into the unknown. My first forays in my late teens doing theatre in front of an audience were challenging and terrifying, but then slowly you find more of a comfort zone. I’ve been through it two times now, as an actress and someone who can present their own songs. So, I would say it wasn’t a particular role or song, but just working out the mechanics of both at the beginning.
Anthony Weightman
You’ve referred to putting “blood sweat and tears” into a performance and achieving something “filled with relaxation and colour” Is that the ideal you aim for as an actress and a musician?
Elizabeth McGovern
Yes, of course. I don’t believe in agony for its own sake. I think it’s part and parcel of the process at times but I don’t think its an end in itself. There are some people I’ve worked with who seem to feel that agony is an important component and they have to create it if it’s not there, or they’re not doing their job. I’m not one of those. Sometimes it’s very easy. Sometimes. But, I don’t think you can go into any job expecting that to be the case.
Anthony Weightman
I know you’re familiar with the problems of trying to make a band work in monetary terms. There are many hugely talented young musicians who are finding it exceedingly difficult to finance their studies. Fine charities like Awards For Young Musicians are doing their best to help. Do you feel the work of charities like this is important?
Elizabeth McGovern
Absolutely, Yes! But I think that beyond that attention needs to be paid to supporting new music, not just the training of musicians. I’m very aware, having been to music school myself, that there are many trained to be fantastic musicians. Then they’re thrown out into the world and there’s no work for them. There’s no system that reports ongoing music, except if you are a classical musician. For actors there’s the National Theatre in London. There are government funded theatres for people to begin performing. There’s funding for regional theatre….less than there used to be. I think, yes! There should be support for the training of musicians, but even more than that there should be support for people embarking on careers and trying to do something new with music. I don’t see any evidence of that. Maybe I’ve missed it, but it seems to me you either have to participate in the sort of X Factor system of making it as a musician or….I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this but there should be alternative ways of finding paths in music. I don’t think there’s enough of this.
Anthony Weightman
Elizabeth, thank you very much for your time and I look forward to seeing you live at the Union Chapel in February.
Anthony Weightman
Tour Dates in February:
Fri 8 Feb 13 Birmingham Adrian Boult Hall
Sat 9 Feb 13 Worcester Huntingdon Hall
Sun 10 Feb 13 Bristol St. George’s Hall
Sun 17 Feb 13 London Union Chapel
Mon 18 Feb 13 Milton Keynes The Stables
