Peter Murphy: Bringing Mr Moonlight To NZ (Interview)

Former Bauhaus front man Peter Murphy will be in New Zealand for two shows in December. Murphy is bringing his Mr. Moonlight Tour to these shores, a show where he performs all Bauhaus material. But that doesn’t mean that Murphy’s solo career is on hold. In fact, when The 13th Floor spoke to Peter, he was in his home in Istanbul, Turkey, putting the final touches on his latest album, Lion, an album he is co-producing with Killing Joke’s Youth.

You can read a transcription of the interview with Peter Murphy here:

Peter: Lion is being mixed right now. It’s really good. Youth and I went in before we started the Bauhaus tour, in went was it February, no March. We really just had four days to knock ideas around and ended up coming up with nigh on the whole album’s worth. So we went in for another four days in Spain in the middle of the tour. We’ve got it down and now it’s being mixed and I’m really, really pleased with it.

MD: Excellent, so you’re working with Youth on this?

Peter: Yes, Youth being the co-writer and producer, which has been wonderful.

MD: He was here just a few months ago with Killing Joke

Peter: Yeah he’s really well known in New Zealand too because I think Jaz is in his company.

MD: As a matter of fact, I was talking with Jaz when he was here earlier this year and he put together a playlist for me of some of his most influential songs and one of them was Bauhaus’ Bela Lugosi’s Dead. So do you know Jaz from back in the day? Did you have some kind of relationship?

Peter: I knew Jaz from very early on. Very early on when we were making the first In the Flat Field album they were living next door to us when we to the place and then we double headlined with Killing Joke in a very early tour. You know, Bauhaus/ Killing Joke. And we met each other there, got on really well. And over the years Jaz has come to a few of my shows and I at his shows. Yeah we know them; I would say very well but not in terms of a long term knowing very well. But we got to have a great month together on that tour.

MD: Yeah he’s quite a character.

Peter: So it was great to come back full circle again with Youth who’s known as very well established producer and wonderful to work with. I mean, he always kinda had the producer head on him; very creative and yeah it’s really worked out well.

MD: And that album is due to be released when, in the early part of next year?

Peter: Well we’re just mixing it now. We’re doing everything so I would say New Year, yeah I would say February.

MD: I noticed on your website you had a little tribute to the guys in the band Yellow Dogs that were killed a couple of weeks ago.

Peter: Yes, very very tragic. There’s not much to say other than then I’m appalled. But Ali did open for me in 2011. It got to you know, I do actually get, I choose the opening acts and I do get to know them and Ali and I, we were very, you know not really close but we were really close on that tour and off track of course we were working. And I know that for sure he was not in any sort of a drug hazed crazy state. We were working very positively and I think, from what I gather it was just emotional reflex by one of the men; it was just tragic.

MD: Yeah, yeah absolutely.

Peter: I don’t know what to say about that really.

MD: And I also saw on the site that you mentioned that your former engineer Derek Tompkins has passed away recently who had worked on the first demos for Bauhaus.

Peter: That’s right; he had a great life Derek. We lost contact, but we would email now and again and do Christmas cards and stuff. Yes, that was very interesting and eccentric kind of, great, great pairing. I mean he didn’t exactly kind of produce. He kind of mentored and was there to give part of the production. The first demo we made which had Bela was beautifully sounding and you know the first thing we did was put it on the album, that was the single.

MD: That was it yeah.

Peter: Ironically, after being in my home town, we went on to invite him to come down to just kind of be there and to give us that bit of angle of thing which was always great. It was a pleasure to have him there. He had no iron in the fire as we say. And he was a local town engineer with a great studio which he bought himself. And we were probably the only contemporary band of that ilk that did stuff like that.

MD: Right. And so you have pretty fond memories of the early days of the band?

Peter: Yes, well we lived a lot through those three years. I mean this tour is not just actually looking back in that sense but it’s kind of a celebration of that work and in the absence of the other members, but that was given anyway. I was playing some of the Bauhaus work in my sets at that point. But I decided to try the pilot shell out last year this time that really went down well. And I was satisfied that the band could really play it. And so it really beamed into a world tour. I was doing it whilst I was, it was kind of coming back to the audience who really wanted to hear the real Bauhaus. It has a limit for me; it’s gone really but the music has its value. And it’s great to do it and they can see it. There’s a large audience who have already seen it and I think I’ve brought a really authentic feel to it although it’s not imitative, do you know what I mean?

MD: How would you compare the way your band approaches the Bauhaus material as opposed to  Bauhaus themselves?

Peter: Well it’s a piece of music that a lot a lot of musicians have to unlearn…it’s a lot of interesting drum work and what I found is that it’s no frills; so it’s really based on our four piece. I play the guitar. I tested this out with most of them who play in the live band for a year or two; and I was really satisfied that we could something really authentic and that’s huge really. The guitar work is not necessarily straight guitar work. It’s a lot of atmosphere. But it works really well and the guitarist is fantastic and the great thing is that it is not just a backing band.

MD: Right. And from what I understand, you finish the show with Ziggy Stardust.

Peter: Well now and again I will chop and change it. Yeah, the encores change. There’s a whole set list of…it does include early stuff that we never got to play. But yeah it depends on the feel of it.  Sometimes, we will put it in.

MD: Have you had the chance to listen to the new Bowie album. Are you still a fan of his?

Peter: Not quite, not all of it. But I know I really like the sound of it. The first single off it was really poignant and beautiful, so congratulations to him for holding out and not going into his well-earned rest. And not even a rest really. He went into his own private world, private life. And I think he deserves that. I haven’t analysed the thing. It’s not even like a last album. And I like that.

MD: What is the music scene like in Istanbul? Do you get involved with local musicians a lot?

Peter: It’s all sorts of things. It’s rock, it’s pop. Rock is a small market but there’s a bubbling, bubbling loads of bands despite the venues. I basically get influenced by the call to prayer five times a day but I don’t listen to it much, I don’t listen to much music really. I purposely block it off and live a life and read then just write it up on tour.

Peter Murphy will perform Saturday, December 14th at The Studio in Auckland and on Sunday, December 15th at Bodega in Wellington.

Click here for more NZ tour details.