For the last 15 years, first as frontman for British art-rock band Roxy Music and later on his own, Bryan Ferry has been a singer with a distinct image: sophisticated, detatched, exuding ennui-the chairman of the bored, as it were.
”The suave, world-weary figure,” Ferry sums up with a sheepish smile.
”Actually, sometimes I think that image may get in the way of the music and hinder me rather than help, because some people may see it as kind of a shallow thing.
”They don`t realize that most of my life is spent working hard. I come from the kind of working-class background where you have to work very hard and if you don`t, you feel guilty.”
Ferry, a 42-year-old former art student whose earliest vocal influences included Frank Sinatra and Otis Redding, spent much of the last two years working on his seventh solo album, ”Bete Noire,” released last November. These days, he`s working even harder to sell it-at least in the United States, where he recently embarked on a multi-city publicity tour designed to drum up support for his latest effort.
For Ferry, a quiet, courtly man whose offstage manner is at odds with the vaguely dissolute roue persona he projects in the spotlight, this sort of self-promotion can be somewhat daunting.
”I think that what a lot of people in pop want to do is to magnify their personality, and I find that difficult,” says the singer-songwriter, relaxing in his Chicago hotel room with a cup of hot tea. ”It`s hard to talk about yourself and your work without seeming pretentious or pompous.
”In a way, I would love to be totally anonymous, but then I would have sold no records at all. If Roxy Music hadn`t been so theatrical, I don`t think we would have created as much of a stir as we did. The thing I liked about the group, and one reason I kept it together for so long, was that I could have some measure of peace behind that group name. You have to be a little more pushy, obviously, if you have a solo career, and I`ve never considered myself to be Mr. Personality.” He laughs.
”Although I`ve always been very comfortable on stage, for some strange reason,” he muses. ”You basically just close your eyes and go with the music . . . .”
”Bete Noire” is already a big hit in Europe, where Roxy Music`s albums and singles regularly hit the top of the charts in the 1970s and early `80s. America, however, has been a different story. The band drew critical kudos in the 1970s for its adventurous rock stance and Ferry`s sense of stylish irony, and ”Love Is the Drug,” made it to No. 30 on the pop singles chart in 1976. But mass success with the U.S. audience eluded them, and so far, Ferry hasn`t fared much better commercially on his own.
”I think that `Avalon` finally went gold (passed the 500,000 mark in sales) about three months ago,” says the singer, referring to the 1982 release that proved to be Roxy Music`s studio album swan song. ”That was very nice, but it took five years. One sees a lot of people who put out records that sell that many copies in the first week. I don`t expect to sell as many albums as Michael Jackson, but I do think my sales could be vastly improved.
”Besides, I`ve got a family to support,” he adds with a laugh. ”I want to make a bit more money.”
Actually, Ferry notes, brightening, ”Bete Noire” -an atmospheric, densely textured collection of songs with guest appearances by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr-has already sold around 250,000 copies in the United States.
”I`m useless when it comes to sales figures, but I think that about a quarter-million is generally what my solo albums do here, and this one is already at that, which is great. The numbers are going up, which is reassuring.”
So far, most of Ferry`s album sales have been accomplished with a minimum of mainstream radio airplay. He has hopes for ”Kiss and Tell,” the tabloid- inspired second single release from the album ”and the most accessible song on the record, by far” (an earlier debut single, ”The Right Stuff,”
failed to make a splash), but he`s not counting on anything.
”I think that it`s awful to go around moaning about how little airplay you get,” he says, ”and I could never expect the masses of American people to like the same things that I like, but in my case, I`ve had albums that were No. 1 in Europe and No. 100 in America. One of my problems seems to be that the music is considered `too black` for white radio a lot of the time and `too white` for black radio, and that`s kind of sad. In Europe, there aren`t any divisions like that.”
One obvious way to promote the album would be to tour, but Ferry has no plans to hit the road.
”I feel slightly guilty, disappointing any fans out there who would like to see me on stage,” he admits. ”But the whole traveling thing isn`t a great deal of fun. The last time I toured with Roxy Music, in 1982, I was pretty ill-just the lifestyle of the road. And I`ve got a family now. I was away from them a lot while I was making the album, and to go away again on tour would be just a little too much.”
Ferry, who lives with his wife and children in the country outside of London, is the father of two preschool-age boys, Otis-named for soul singer Otis Redding-and Isaac. ”People always ask if I named Isaac after Isaac Hayes,” says Ferry with a smile. ”Actually, the name comes from the Bible.
”It was a very surprising thing for me, winding up having children,” he adds. ”This is such a self-obsessive business, it always was hard for me to imagine myself being responsible for others.
”Being a `family man` doesn`t make very good copy, of course,” notes Ferry, who describes himself as ”sort of conservative” in some of his ideas (his wife, for instance, ”probably would like to” have an outside job, but the idea of sharing child care in a two-career family doesn`t appeal to him).
”And you hate the idea of becoming too bland, or having your music become too domesticated and losing that edge. But Picasso and Monet did their best work when they had 12 children or something like that, so (parenthood)
shouldn`t necessarily minimize your artistic pulse or energy. It can be a distraction, which is why I prefer to go out to work instead of having a studio in my home.”
Ferry, who has a degree in art and collects British paintings from 1900-1945, still sees himself as ”more of an artist than a pop performer.
”When I left school, I shifted and found myself becoming a musician, but I still think of songs like pictures,” he says. ”When I do an album, it`s like doing an art show.”
His next album, Ferry notes, may find him exchanging the densely layered sound he has pursued for the last three albums in favor of simpler
arrangements.
”I didn`t set out to make `Avalon,` `Boys and Girls` and this album a trilogy of sorts, but looking back at them, I see a certain kind of development there and some of the same combinations of players and complex instrumentation and improvisations we worked out in the recording studio,” he says. ”I think it`s possible that I`ve gone as far as I can go with the fairly dense, tapestry type of things. I can imagine doing much simpler things the next time around, though it`s too early to say for sure.”
It`s also too early to say for sure if Roxy Music is finished for good.
”We could get together again, possibly, though I doubt it,” says Ferry.
”Why? Probably because I`m much more secure in my belief in myself now, and I have such a strong repertory of players to draw from. I think you should make records for the right reasons, not just because you`ve got a brand name that`s a salable item. But I can imagine myself writing or doing something with some of the people who shared the name Roxy Music with me-Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay . . . .”
What about Brian Eno, the eccentric synthesizer wizard whose offbeat style gave the early Roxy Music lineup much of its edge-and whose ego problems with Ferry caused him to leave the band in 1973?
”Well, all of that happened 15 years ago,” says Ferry. ”We had made only two albums together when he left, but that second one, `For Your Pleasure,` is still one of my favorites. Now, I feel that Brian has proved himself-not that he has to prove anything, but I do feel that he would be an interesting person for me to bounce off of.
”I ran into him a couple of times when I was starting to work on `Bete Noire,` and we were very pleased to see each other. We didn`t discuss working together, but I would be much more open to something like that now. Making the last three records gave me a lot more confidence, because they weren`t easy albums for me to make. They were very hard.
”Of course, I always seem to put myself through the mill when I make a record,” adds Ferry. ”It shouldn`t be so hard, but I guess that I don`t really feel that I`ve achieved anything unless it`s been difficult.”
