Today, we're doing a deep dive into someone who
wasn't just a musician in different genres. It
feels more like he picked up genres and, well,
used them like tools, sometimes smashing them
together to make something completely new. We're
talking about John Davies' Kale OBE. Absolutely.
The essential polymath of the avant -garde, you
could say. I mean, just calling him a founding
member of the Velvet Underground doesn't nearly
cover it, though that's obviously huge. Oh, for
sure. It's his biggest claim to fame for many.
But he's also a composer, singer, songwriter,
producer, multi -instrumentalist. His career
spans, what, six decades now? And it's just constantly
shifted rock, drone music, classical discipline,
avant -garde noise, right up to modern electronica.
That sheer range is incredible. So our mission
today is to trace this really fascinating, sometimes
pretty fraught... We're going from Cale as this
Welsh prodigy, you know, steeped in classical
music to a downtown New York City experimentalist
through the whole Velvet Underground iconic period
into those, frankly, quite terrifying solo years
in the 70s. Yeah, definitely dark times there.
And then his enduring role as a producer. I mean,
he helped launch entire movements like Protopunk.
Our sources really map out these radical stylistic
shifts and his influence, which you got to say
is pretty enduring. And I think a good way to
frame Kale's whole career is as a study in collision,
deliberate collision even. OK. Collision between
what? Well, primarily between the discipline,
the rigor of European classical music, the stuff
he learned growing up in Wales, and then the
absolute untamed chaos of American rock and roll
he found later. Right. Structure versus noise.
Exactly. And his core strength, I think, is just
his adaptability. Moving so easily between viola,
bass, keyboards, piano, his voice, and innovating
on pretty much all of them. You can see that
constant movement just by glancing at the labels
he's been on, can't you? Columbia. Surprise Island,
A &M, Domino. Never staying put. He never seemed
to stay in one place long enough to get too comfortable,
did he? So here's the big question we're trying
to unpack today. And it kind of sums up that
duality you mentioned. Yeah. How did the guy
who composed this, you know, beautiful, complex
Takata in a Welsh church end up, maybe two decades
later, seriously wanting to record a rock album
with the amplifiers literally submerged underwater?
Huh. Yeah, that's the Kael paradox, isn't it?
That journey, that bridge between those two points,
that's the deep dive. Okay, let's unpack this.
So to really get that collision, we have to start
with the classical roots. John Davies Kael, born
March 9th, 1942. Garnet, Carmarthaminshire, southwest
Wales, a mining village. And his early life right
away sets up this duality we talked about. He
grew up bilingual, but... It was kind of fractured,
you know. His dad, Will Cale, only spoke English.
Okay. But his mother, Margaret Davies, who was
a primary school teacher, she taught him Welsh.
So Cale actually didn't start learning English
until he was about seven at school. Wow, really?
So Welsh was his first language, basically. Yeah,
giving him this really deep, early connection
to the language and culture of his home, distinct
from his father's influence. And this cultural
root then gets combined with some serious musical
training pretty early on. Oh, absolutely. He
showed talent early. played the organ at Ammonford
Church. And get this, the BBC actually recorded
a toccata he composed back then. No way. As a
kid. Yeah. And apparently some commentators at
the time were comparing that early piece, which,
you know, a toccata requires some technical chops,
to the Soviet composer Aram Kachaturian. Kachaturian.
That's quite a comparison for a young composer.
Suggests something pretty dramatic, maybe. Right.
A certain dramatic, maybe slightly exotic, romantic
feel, even in his earliest classical stuff. This
wasn't just messing around on the organ. He got
really good on the viola, joined the National
Youth Orchestra of Wales, the NYOW, when he was
only 13. 13. OK, so serious talent. Definitely.
That really cemented his technical skills. And
it all led to him getting a scholarship to study
music at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
OK, Goldsmiths. And that's where the collision
starts to happen, right? The classical discipline
hits the avant -garde. Exactly. This is where
it gets really interesting. Because this shift,
it wasn't just accidental drift. It feels like
a deliberate philosophical choice he made. While
he was at Goldsmith's, Kale just dove headfirst
into the countercultural avant -garde scene.
Specifically, Fluxus. Fluxus. Yeah. Right. They
have that whole art movement, wasn't it? Performance
art, simple stuff, breaking down barriers between
disciplines. Precisely. It wasn't just about
listening to weird music. It was about... doing
it, participating, organizing. So he got involved.
Big time. He organized one of the early Fluxus
concerts, a little festival of new music, July
6, 1963. And crucially, he conducted the very
first U .K. performance of John Cage's concert
for piano and orchestra. John Cage. OK, that's
a major influence right there. Embracing chance,
silence. Totally transformative. That experience
of interpreting Cade, working with those ideas,
it really prepped him for the kind of, let's
say, interdisciplinary chaos he'd later bring
to rock music. And this fascination with the
avant -garde. it leads him straight to America,
doesn't it? 1963. Aaron Copland was involved.
Yeah, Copland apparently saw his potential and
recommended Kale for further study at Tanglewood,
the big summer music academy in the States. But
Tanglewood wasn't really where he landed, was
it? It was more... Downtown New York. Exactly.
Once he hit New York City, that formal institutional
training kind of took a backseat pretty quickly
to the downtown performance scene. He just jumped
right in. What kind of stuff was he doing? Well,
one of his first big things was participating
in that notorious Eric Sadie performance, Vexations.
The 18 -hour, 40 -minute piano marathon, September
9th, 1963. He did it alongside John Cage and
a few others. 18 hours. Yeah. Playing the same
short piece over and over. Like 840 times. Yep.
Unbelievable endurance required. And then, you
know, he actually appeared on that TV panel show,
I've Got a Secret. Wait, his secret was that
he played piano for 18 hours straight. Basically,
yeah. It's kind of peak 1960s avant -garde celebrity,
isn't it? Turning this intense artistic endurance
thing into, like, pop culture trivia. That's
wild. But beyond the stunts, this whole immersion
was creatively vital for him. oh absolutely foundational
he played in lamonta young's group the theater
of eternal music drone music right those really
long sustained notes patience texture exactly
it teaches you how tiny sonic shifts can build
huge tension and that's precisely the kind of
thinking he brought into the velvet underground
sound later and it was in that group playing
drone music that he met Sterling Morrison. Ah,
another key connection. So what was the big takeaway
for him philosophically from Cage and this whole
scene? Well, Cale himself said that Cage's writings,
Cage's mentorship, it gave him this crucial,
relaxed, artistic outlook. He felt it kind of
freed him from what he saw as this crippling
need European composers felt to constantly justify
and intellectualize everything they did. So Cage
gave him permission to just experiment. Pretty
much. Permission to experiment wildly without
needing approval or having to write a thesis
about it every time. And he took that license,
that freedom, straight into forming the Velvet
Underground. Which brings us right to the crucible.
The Velvet Underground. Kale co -founds it with
Lou Reed in 1965. They bring in Angus MacLeese
and Sterling Morrison. Just a perfect storm,
really, of downtown art school thinking and raw
rock energy. Yeah, but that initial lineup hit
a snag almost immediately, didn't it? A philosophical
one. What happened? The band got offered their
first paying gig, just 75 bucks, playing at Summit
High School. And Angus MacLeese just... quit
on the spot quit why he saw taking money for
their art as like the ultimate sellout betraying
the purity of the art form wow That's quite ironic
considering the VU legacy and, well, the money
it generates now. Totally ironic. Anyway, McLeese
is out and Mo Tucker comes in on drums. Now,
Cale apparently had some initial objections,
kind of old -fashioned ideas about having a woman
drummer. Really? Cale? Yeah, according to the
sources. But he very quickly realized how essential
she was. Her style, minimalist, tribal, standing
up, pounding those drums, it became such a unique,
integral part of their whole sound. Absolutely.
You can't imagine the VU without that beat. Now,
Cale was already making... ways before they even
released an album, right? That demo tape story.
Oh, yeah, that's crucial. Summer of 65, he takes
this raw, mostly acoustic VU demo reel back to
Britain, tries to shop it around, get a deal.
And fails. Fails to get a contract, yeah. But
people like Joe Boyd heard it and the tape started
circulating in the UK underground scene. So you
end up with this weird situation where bands
like the Deviants, the Yardbirds, even David
Bowie were apparently covering Velvet Underground
songs before the first album, Velvet Underground
and Nico, even came out in 67. So Kale's early
hustle basically seeded the ground for glam and
punk rock over there just by spreading that tape.
You could definitely argue that. His influence
was spreading before they even had a record deal.
Now, on those first two albums, his sound contribution
is just massive. He played everything, didn't
he? Viola, bass, piano, celesta. Backing vocals
sometimes. But the signature thing, the real
kale sound, was that electrically amplified viola.
He'd often run it through fuzz boxes, distortion
pedals, just like a guitar. Creating those screeching,
feedback -heavy, drone -like textures. Exactly.
Listen to Venus and Furs. That's a classical
instrument, the viola, being used to create cure,
abrasive noise. It's the collision you talked
about happening right there in the sound. And
that aesthetic was there from the very beginning,
even on their first sort of official. release
that track loop right loop that instrumental
feedback experiment that kale did it was given
away as a flexi disc with aspen magazine that
was technically their first commercially available
recording and it's pure kale noise exploration
now the dynamic between kale and reed That was
the engine, wasn't it? But based entirely on
creative tension. Oh, absolutely. You had Lou
Reed, the street poet, focused on, you know,
pop structures, albeit dark ones, and those incredible
lyrics. And then you had Kale, the classically
trained noise artist, pushing for drone, texture,
improvisation, chaos. And the proof is right
there in the record. Totally. Compare the sound
of White Light, White Heat, that's the Kale era
album. It's proto -noise rock, maximum volume,
feedback, those long, intense jams. Like Sister
Ray. Exactly. Then look at the next album, the
self -titled one, The Velvet Underground, recorded
right after Kale left. It's quiet. It's acoustic.
It's almost folk rock influenced in places. A
completely different band, sonically. The subtraction
of KL just immediately resulted in a radically
different, much less chaotic sound. You can hear
him pushing all over White Heat, though, that
manic driving organ on Sister Ray. 17 minutes
of it. Right. And he takes lead vocals twice,
shares the lead with Reed on the very experimental
Lady Godiva's Operation, and then... he does
the deadpan narration on Reed's disturbing spoken
word piece, The Gift. He was really committed
to that dissonance, wasn't he? Even later, looking
back. Yeah, he made this fascinating comparison
later on. He said his use of out -of -tune stuff
and noise in the VU was kind of like the indecipherable
lyricism of certain strains of southern hip -hop.
Wait, what? Southern hip -hop? How did he connect
those? His point was, if he could use deliberately
out of tune sounds to convey feeling, then rappers
didn't necessarily need every word to make perfect
literal sense either. Both were using sonic disruption,
let's call it, for artistic effect. embracing
chaos. That's a bold connection. Is he saying
there's a direct line or just drawing a parallel
in spirit? More the latter, I think. But it really
shows his core philosophy, doesn't it? He doesn't
just see his early work as proto -punk. He sees
it as this foundational act of radicalism that
kind of permits all future musical chaos. The
goal was always to break the rules, dismantle
the expected musical language. But maybe dismantling
too much proved too much for Lou Reed. By September
68, Things got really tense. Yeah. The friction
just became unbearable. The sources are pretty
clear. Reed basically gave Sterling Morrison
and Mo Tucker an ultimatum. Either Kale gets
fired or Reed walks away from the band. Wow.
And they chose Reed. Reluctantly, it seems, Reid's
argument was that the band needed to become more
accessible, less experimental. Cale played his
last gig with them at the Boston Tea Party. And
the reason Reid apparently gave, according to
Robert Quine anyway, was just that Cale's ideas
were too out there. And the classic example,
the almost mythical story representing that radicalism
is the underwater amps thing. The underwater
amps. Yeah, the sources back this up. Kale allegedly
pitched the idea of recording their next album
with all the amplifiers submerged in a giant
tank of water. Just imagine the sound. Or the
electrocution risk. Right. Reed totally rejected
it. Too destructive. Too anti -commercial. Too,
well, too Kale, basically. It makes you wonder,
though. If Reed hadn't fired him and Kale had
somehow pulled off recording an album underwater,
how different would Noy's rock history be? Impossible
to know. Yeah. Mo Tucker's quote about his departure
really sums it up, doesn't it? It does. She said,
when John left, it was really sad. The lunacy
factor was gone. His dismissal, painful as it
must have been, effectively just released him
back into the wild, back into that experimental
world where that kind of lunacy wasn't just tolerated,
it was kind of the whole point. And Kale certainly
didn't waste time warning. fired in 68, and boom,
he immediately pivots, becomes this really crucial
producer and arranger, using that classical discipline,
actually, to shape the sound of bands that would
become punk and shape the singer -songwriter
scene, too. Yeah, this period often gets a bit
overshadowed by the VU stuff, but it's so important.
His ability to bring some kind of structure,
some discipline to these really raw, chaotic
artists was pretty unique. You hear it right
away on the Stooges' first album, their self
-titled debut from 1969. Protopunk. Absolutely.
And Kale, who understood noise and drone, kind
of created this controlled sonic space where
Iggy Pop's raw energy could just explode, but
without it falling apart completely. It's a proto
-punk monument, but arguably built using classical
principles of structure and texture. And then
there's his work with Nico, that incredible trilogy
of albums. The Marble Index from 68. Desert Shore
in 70, and The End in 74. He was almost like
her musical interpreter. Totally. He took her
harmonium, her unique, chilling voice, and surrounded
them with this incredible array of instruments,
viola, cello, piano, but used in really unusual,
stark ways. The result is just hauntingly beautiful
and completely unconventional. He also brought
that arranging skill to this sort of Baroque
folk scene, right? Nick Drake. Yeah, he played
on Nick Drake's second album, Brighter Later,
from 1970. played viola and harpsichord on the
track Fly, just adding these layers of classical
sophistication that really contrasted beautifully
with Drake's kind of melancholy folk style. And
maybe most famously in that proto -punk vein,
he produced the Modern Lover's debut album. Ah,
yes. Jonathan Richman, an absolute cornerstone
record for punk history. And it was so ahead
of its time that Reprise, their original label,
actually rejected it initially. Too weird for
them. Apparently. It didn't get properly released
until later on Berserkly Records. but by then
its influence had already spread. Kale captured
that minimalist, naive, but intense sound perfectly.
And while all this production work is happening,
he's also launching his own solo career. Right.
His debut, Vintage Violence, came out in 1970.
And surprisingly, it wasn't super experimental.
It had these roots rock vibes. And critics were
comparing it to acts like The Band or even Phil
Spector's production. Quite lush and accessible,
really. But the collisions, as you call them,
they continued. He didn't stick with that sound
for long. Not at all. Next up was Church of Anthrax
in 71, a full -on experimental collaboration
with the minimal music pioneer Terry Riley. So
clearly he hadn't abandoned that side of things.
Then after another art music detour with the
Academy in Peril, he releases Paris 1919 in 1973.
Now Paris 1919 often gets singled out as one
of his absolute best, right? Why is that? I think
because it's this temporary perfect balance point,
a masterpiece of controlled chaos maybe. He went
back to this really lush, orchestrated singer
-songwriter sound, but the lyrics are incredibly
dense, complex, referencing European history
and politics. Almost deliberately obscure sometimes.
Yeah. And he used the UCLA Symphony Orchestra,
plus guys from Little Fee and the Crusaders.
So musically, it's gorgeous, very formal, almost
like a final nod to his classical training, right
before things took a very, very dark turn. That
accessible, almost beautiful sound in Stick Around.
The Island Trilogy. That marks a huge shift,
doesn't it? Driven by personal stuff. That's
absolutely right. In 1974, Cale moves back to
London. His second marriage is falling apart
and he enters this period of just intense artistic
volatility, maybe even instability. He puts out
three albums back to back to back for Island
Records. Fear in 74, Slow Dazzle in 75, and Helen
of Troy, also 75. And the sound? Dark, threatening,
full of barely suppressed aggression. That's
the defining characteristic of those records.
And the music itself starts to reflect that paranoia.
aggression oh totally listen to tracks like leaving
it up to you or especially fear is a man's best
friend from the fear album they might start out
sounding somewhat conventional almost like pop
rock yeah but then the mood just curdles it gets
paranoid confrontational and often the music
itself just breaks down instrumentally into what
one critic famously called it a morass of discordance
and screaming wow Who is he working with then?
Still high profile collaborator. Yeah, people
like Phil Manzanera and Brian Eno from Roxy Music
were involved. But even their kind of sophisticated
art pop sensibilities couldn't really contain
the sheer aggression Kale was channeling at that
point. And this artistic shift. Lines up perfectly
with the birth of punk rock in the UK. Yeah.
His live shows became notorious. Absolutely legendary.
Loud, abrasive, incredibly confrontational. They
were pure performance art shock tactics, totally
in sync with that burgeoning punk attitude. He
started wearing that hockey mask on stage. Yep.
The hockey goaltender mask. A really terrifying,
aggressive look. And this was years before Jason
Voorhees in the Friday the 13th movies made it
famous. Kale did it first. And then there's the
chicken incident. Ah, the infamous Croydon incident,
yes. During a gig, he apparently took a dead
chicken someone had thrown on stage and chopped
its head off with a meat cleaver he happened
to have. Oh my god, what was the reaction? Well,
his drummer, who happened to be a vegetarian,
was apparently so disgusted he just walked off
stage mid -show and quit the band right then
and there. Can't blame him, really. How did Cale
react to that? His response? He recorded a track
for his next EP called Chicken Shit, basically
mocking the drummer for quitting. So you see,
this wasn't just random recklessness. It felt
like deliberately confrontational, boundary -pushing
conceptual art bleeding into rock performance.
And Kale himself later linked some of this extreme
behavior, the paranoia, to heavy drug use. Specifically
cocaine, right? Yeah, he was pretty open about
that later. He said that in the 60s, drugs felt
like a cool experiment. But in the 70s, he...
got in over my head acknowledged it fueled some
of the chaos but even amidst all that personal
turmoil and stage craziness he kept producing
other people incredibly yeah he produced the
first single for sham 69 i don't wanna in 77
punk pioneers and crucially he produced the debut
album for squeeze in 1978 right the squeeze sessions
that's another legendary story about his production
style totally apparently he came in listened
to all the songs they prepared and then told
them to throw every single one out and write
completely new material right there under pressure.
Talk about tough love. Pushing them to find something
new. Exactly. Demanding creativity on the spot.
And somehow, amidst all this, he even had a minor
pop chart hit himself in 77, playing keyboards
on Julie Covington's cover of Alice Cooper's
Only Women Bleed. It got to number 12 in the
UK. So even then, he could still tap into that
accessible arranging skill when he wanted to.
It seems so. But the decade really culminated,
in terms of that aggression, with the live album
Sabotage Live, recorded at CBGB in New York in
1979. It's just pure kale from that confrontational
mid -70s period. All new songs, tackling politics,
militarism, paranoia head -on. It's like the
sonic document of all that stage brutality. Okay,
so we move into the 1980s. After the darkness
and confrontation of the late 70s, we see Kale
making a bit of a U -turn, actually attempting
to get some real commercial success. Yeah, it's
a really fascinating period because you see this
conflict playing out. He clearly wanted the recognition,
maybe the financial rewards, of being a more
commercial artist. Right. But temperamentally,
he just couldn't seem to stop being this experimental,
sometimes abrasive, radical. His seventh solo
album, Honey Sweet from 1981, was on A &M Records,
a major label. And he worked with producer Mike
Thorne, who was known for a more polished sound.
Trying to smooth out the edges. Seems like it.
And that story about the album cover art is just
so telling, isn't it? The Andy Warhol cover.
Yeah. Warhol provides this cool, minimalist black
and white design, and Kael decides to colorize
it himself against Warhol's explicit wishes.
Why? Just to make it seem more commercially appealing?
Presumably. Trying to make it poppier, brighter.
Yeah. But it was a compromise on the art, and
ultimately the commercial breakthrough didn't
really happen anyway. His relationship with A
&M didn't last long. And he tried again later
in the decade, didn't he? Artificial Intelligence
in 85. Right, on Beggar's Banquet. That was an
even more direct pop effort. Lots of synthesizers,
drum machines, very characteristic of the mid
-80s sound. He co -wrote the tracks with Larry
Ratson Sloman. Did that one work commercially?
Not hugely, no. But tracks like Dying on the
Vine from that album are really compelling. It
showed he could craft this quite sophisticated,
if maybe a little cold, 80s pop sound. So why
do you think he consistently struggled to get
that big commercial hit, even when he was actively
trying, working with producers like Thorne, making
these artistic compromises? Well, listening back,
the sources kind of suggest that his inherent,
maybe inescapable dissonance was just too strong
to completely suppress. Even on his most pop
-oriented records, there's often this sort of
icy. see distance in his voice or an underlying
tension in the arrangement. Something unsettling.
Yeah, something that prevents the music from
just relaxing into easy, comfortable pop. I mean,
he'd spent the best part of 20 years actively
cultivating chaos and disruption. Maybe turning
that off completely just wasn't possible for
him. And you have to contrast those attempts
at commercial pop with the real artistic statement
he made in the 80s, which was anything but commercial.
Music for a new society from 1982. Ah, yes. On
ZE Records. This is where the raw artistic honesty
just completely overshadows any commercial impulse.
Music for a new society is, well, it's sparse,
it's harrowing, it's bleak. How is the sound
different? The instrumentation is incredibly
minimal. Often it's just Kelly's piano, maybe
a stark viola line, his voice treated with effects,
lots of reverb creating this huge empty sonic
space. It somehow blends the kind of vocal refinement
you heard on Paris 1919 with the psychological
threat of those island records, but just stripped
bare. And critically acclaimed. Universally.
Often called understated and perhaps a masterpiece.
It really sounds like an artist grappling, very
honestly, with profound depression, maybe with
the fallout from all that 70s chaos. Projectory
shifts again, mid -decade. And this time it's
triggered by something personal. Right. The birth
of his daughter, Eden Kael, in 1985. He had her
with his third wife, Rize Roshami. And apparently
becoming a father really inspired him to, well,
step back, take a much needed break from recording
and performing for a while. So when he comes
back, what's the sound? His comeback album was
Words for the Dying in 1989. And it signals this
really definitive return to his classical and
more literary roots. Brian Eno produced it. And
the album is mainly these settings of poems by
Dylan Thomas. Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet. Back
to his roots. Exactly. And significantly, he'd
actually written the music back in 1982, specifically
as a response to the Falklands War. So again,
it's Cale using high art, using classical and
poetic forms to address political trauma. Then
the 90s kick off with this huge cultural moment,
the end of that long, what, 18 -year estrangement
between him and Lou Reed. Yeah. After Andy Warhol
died in 87, Cale and Reed collaborated on that
song cycle, Songs for Drella, released in 1990,
a tribute to Warhol, their mentor. deal artistically
and symbolic, too. Huge. Although, interestingly,
Kahle later revealed it wasn't all smooth sailing.
He apparently kind of resented letting Reid take
the lead on the project, which just highlights,
again, that core tension, right? The push and
pull between Kale's experimental side and Reed's
more narrative, structured approach was still
there, even when they were collaborating on a
tribute. But that collaboration did pave the
way for the actual Velvet Underground reunion.
It did. They reformed first for a benefit show
in Paris in 1990 and then did a full reunion
tour in 1993, which was documented on the live
album Live MCMXC3. Now this brings us to something
else from the 90s. possibly Kale's most widespread
cultural contribution, even if people don't always
realize it's him, his version of Leonard Cohen's
Hallelujah. Ah, yes, Hallelujah. This really
does raise that fascinating question. How did
his cover version basically rewrite the history
of that song? So walk us through it. He recorded
it for a tribute album. Right. A 1991 tribute
album called I'm Your Fan. Now, the crucial thing
to remember is that Cohen's original version
from his 1984 album, Various Positions, well,
it hadn't really caught on much. It was recorded
in 68 time, kind of a waltz feel. Okay, so what
did Cale do differently? Cale took the song,
slowed it right down, changed the time signature
to a more standard 44, and arranged it just for
piano and voice. Crucially, he also selected
a very specific set of verses from the many that
Cohen had actually written for the song. So Kale
essentially reconstructed the song's structure
and its emotional core for a wider audience.
That's exactly it. He found the emotional accessibility
in it. his choice of verses, that stately, incredibly
heartfelt piano arrangement that became the blueprint.
That's the structure and the feeling that almost
every subsequent cover version, including Jeff
Buckley's incredibly famous one from 1994, was
based on. So without John Cale's interpretation.
Hallelujah might very well have just remained
a relatively obscure Leonard Cohen deep cut.
Cale is the one who really unlocked its potential
and turned it into the global standard it is
today. Amazing. He kept busy through the 90s
too, right? Collaborations, another solo album.
Yeah, he did a spoken word duet with Suzanne
Vega on an album by Hector Zazu in 94. And in
1996, he released Walking on Locusts, his only
solo studio album of that decade. Had some cool
guests. David Byrne was on it, and it featured
a reunion with Mo Tucker on drums for a track.
And then finally, proper recognition from the
establishment. Yes. Belatedly, perhaps. But in
1996, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame as a member of the Velvet Underground.
And at the ceremony, Kale, Reed and Tucker performed
together one last time. They did a song called
Last Night I Said Goodbye to My Friend, dedicated
to Sterling Morrison, who had passed away just
the year before. Moving into the 21st century,
Kale shows absolutely no signs of slowing down.
Instead, he just adapts again, doesn't he? Bringing
that aesthetic of collision of mixing things
up into the digital age. The 2000s see him really
embracing electronica. Yeah, definitely. He signed
with EMI in 2003 and his sound shifted again.
You can really hear the influence of modern electronica
and alternative rock creeping in. The album Hobo
Sapiens from that year was co -produced with
Nick Franklin, who's part of the electronic duo
Lemon Jelly. So actively seeking out contemporary
collaborators. Absolutely. Showing he's still
listening, still absorbing. That continued on
the next album, Black Acetate, in 2005. He demonstrated
how those drone techniques he mastered way back.
could translate really effectively into electronic
textures. And he kept producing other artists,
too. Oh yeah, kept his hand in. Notably, he worked
with the Austin singer -songwriter Alejandro
Escovedo on his album The Boxing Mirror. That
project kind of let him bridge his own experimental
side with Escovedo's more roots rock sound. The
later part of that decade seemed more about looking
back, though. Retrospectives, performing old
albums. It did, but often with a new angle. Circus
Live, that live album from 2007. It was a retrospective
covering his whole career, but featuring all
new arrangements of the songs. And then, yeah,
he spent a few years around 2009 to 2011 performing
Paris 1919 live in its entirety all over the
world. Revisiting that early masterpiece, what
do you make of that? It felt like maybe an artist
coming to terms with his own history, you know,
looking back and reassessing these major works
from his past, perhaps with the wisdom of age.
He also got that. that interesting residency
in Tasmania. Right. He was appointed the first
eminent art in residence, or ER, at the Mona
Foma Festival down there in 2010. Brian Ritchie
from the Violent Femmes curated that. And Cale
used the opportunity to present some multimedia
work, including one piece called Didio Du, meaning
Dark Days, which apparently focused a lot on
his relationship with the Welsh language, still
exploring those roots. Incredibly, he's still
putting out vital new music now, well into his
80s. He's refusing to just... be a legacy act
totally prolific shifty adventures in nookie
wood came out in 2012 and that had a track featuring
danger mouse Again, collaborating with really
current influential producers. Still curious,
still experimenting. And he even revisited music
for A New Society, didn't he? Yeah, that was
fascinating. In 2016, he released MFANS, which
wasn't just a remaster. It was completely new,
re -recorded, often radically different versions
of those incredibly bleak songs from the 82 album.
Why revisit such a dark period? It's hard to
say for sure, but it suggests maybe this need
to reinterpret his own past traumas using the
sonic tools and perspective he has now in the
21st century. Really interesting psychological
move for an artist. And the collaborations continue
right up to the present. Yep. worked with the
Welsh electronic artist Kelly Lee Owens on her
track Corner of My Sky in 2020, and his own recent
albums are just astonishing for someone his age,
Mercy in 2023, and then Poptical Illusion just
this year, 2024. Still blending style, still
using electronics, experimental textures, but
with this mature, reflective songwriting voice.
And connecting back to that intense 70s period
we talked about, there was that song Nightcrawling
from 2022. Ah, yeah, Nightcrawling. That's a
direct look back, isn't it? A reminiscence about
his friendship with David Bowie during that really
volatile mid to late 70s period in New York.
What does the song capture about that time? It
paints this picture of him and Bowie just running
the streets, as he puts it, sometimes getting
so high or wired they couldn't keep a thought
in our heads. It's a reminder that these now
iconic figures were once just young, experimental,
maybe quite damaged friends navigating this intense,
chaotic scene together. And those shared experiences
Experiences, however messy, were clearly fuel
for the art they made then, and maybe even for
the art he's still making now. And his status
is, of course, totally cemented now. Yeah. Beyond
the Rock Hall induction. Right. He was appointed
an Officer of the Order of the British Empire,
an OBE, back in the 2010 Birthday Honors List,
for services to music and the arts. Official
recognition from his home country. Now, to really
understand the man behind this incredibly varied,
often confrontational art, we probably need to
touch briefly on his personal life and some of
the struggles he faced. They seem pretty tightly
linked to his output, especially in the 70s.
Yeah, context is important. Briefly, on the marriage
front, he was married three times. First to the
American fashion designer Betsy Johnson from
68 to 71. Right, very much of that Warhol scene
era. Exactly. Then to Cynthia, Cindy Wells. She
was known as Miss Cindy from the GTO. It was
Frank Zappa's kind of performance art group that
was 71 to 75, right during that intense island
records period. Okay. And finally, to Rize Irishelmi
from 1981 to 1997. And she's the mother of his
daughter, Eden. And the journey was substance
use. That seems pretty critical to understanding
some of the extremes in his life and work. It
does seem to be. The sources mention he actually
had severe bronchial issues as a child and a
doctor prescribed him opiates for it. He apparently
became reliant on the medicine just to get to
sleep. As a child. Wow. Yeah. One biographer
called that early dependence a formative experience,
suggesting it might have set up a kind of problematic
relationship with medication and intoxication
right from the start. And that unfortunately
continued into the New York scene later on. Tragically,
yes. He got heavily involved in the 60s and 70s
drug scene there. Cocaine became his main drug
of choice. He himself put it very clearly later.
In the 60s, for me, drugs were a cool experiment.
In the 70s, I got in over my head. Very stark
admission. And he felt it actually hurt his music
in the 80s. He did. He felt the addiction was
negatively affecting his output, which is a powerful
thing for an artist to admit. He made the conscious
choice to get clean, apparently prompted by some
embarrassing concert experiences, but crucially
also by the birth of his daughter in 1985. Wanting
to be present father seems to have been a major
catalyst for him seeking sobriety. And he's used
that experience positively since then. Yeah,
demonstrating that full arc. In 2009, he hosted
a documentary called Heroin, Whales, and Me.
It was aimed at raising awareness about heroin
addiction and drug problems back in his native
Wales. He used his own history very openly to
try and connect with people facing similar struggles
from dependence to active sobriety and public
responsibility. So as we wrap up and look back
across this huge career, I mean, John Cale's
story is just one of. Staggering breath, isn't
it? Six decades. We've gone from the classical
discipline of his youth in Wales to the radical
dissonant noise of the Velvet Underground, his
absolutely crucial role as a producer for proto
-punk bands, that dark, raw, brutal honesty of
his 70s solo albums. Yeah, unforgettable stuff.
And right through to his adaptation to electronic
in the 21st century and his continued vitality
today. He really is the ultimate learner, isn't
he? Someone who just constantly absorbed information,
absorbed sounds, synthesized them, and then reapplied
that knowledge across the entire musical map.
He made sure he never stayed in one comfortable
spot long enough for anyone to predict what he'd
do next. Refused to be pinned down. Exactly.
His whole body of work is just this incredible
case study in critical thinking and questioning
assumptions about what music is supposed to sound
like, what it should be. He simply refused to
accept the existing boundaries. And that refusal
is probably why he's still so relevant, still
making compelling music in his 80s. I think so.
And, you know, thinking back to that mid 70s
period, the one Cale sings about in Nightcrawling,
him and Bowie running the streets of New York,
struggling to keep a thought in their heads.
It does raise a really interesting final thought
for you to mull over. OK. We know the documented
output from those years was often dark. confrontational
fueled by chaos and drugs but what about the
undocumented stuff what kinds of truly radical
maybe half -formed musical ideas what kinds of
wild conversations and artistic theories might
have just evaporated on those late night coke
-fueled runs been lost forever ideas too fleeting
or chaotic to even capture at the time exactly
and then how did those undocumented chaotic experiences
eventually somehow get distilled down how did
they end up fueling the sophistic often quite
controlled, electronically influenced compositions
he's making today. It's like he found a way to
turn that past destruction and chaos into a completely
new form of artistic discipline, almost a new
classicism. That journey from chaos to composed
legacy, that's a powerful connection to think
about.