Kiki Dee recounts her musical career spanning seven remarkable decades. Our exploration begins by delving into her remarkable 29-year collaboration with the gifted guitarist and producer, Carmelo Luggeri. We rewind the clock to Kiki’s formative years, Motown and her iconic collaborations with Elton John. Along the way, we revisit her hit singles and enduring musical legacy. Kiki Dee’s story is a testament to the ever-evolving nature of music and the unyielding spirit of an artist. Kiki and Carmelo’s interview with Jason Barnard also highlights the magic of their live performances, just before they start their UK tour.
Firstly, I wanted to talk to you about the title track of your latest album ‘The Long Ride Home‘ as that’s one of the highlights. In terms of the lyrics, is that about following your own path in life, really being conscious of being in the moment and where you’re going?
Kiki: Yeah, I suppose I’m the main lyricist, although we do collaborate together on music. I think it’s about sometimes you have to be independent. You have to do it for yourself. The long ride home is yours alone to find. It’s that kind of part of us that is alone, actually. And also there’s some references, although they’re very subtle, to think of what you’re saying, social media, the world as it is. So there’s hidden messages in there as well.
And Carmelo, the songwriting process generally, how does that work? Do you come up with the melody or the guitar phrase first and then Kiki, the lyrics on top?
Carmelo: We haven’t really got a set way of working. Usually the ideas will come out of a guitar riff or whatever. I get Kiki to record any idea that she has into a phone, just anything and I sift through them. And sometimes that might spark an idea or I might have a guitar riff. And we record everything and then start sifting through and a winner starts to come forward. But that one, funnily enough, I was watching the telly and I just recorded that. I had a couple of lines and just went around it, played it to Kiki and next thing she’d turned it into a proper song. [laughs]
But we are pleased with ourselves, to be honest. Well, in terms of the recording, often we talk about when we play live, of course, there’s only the two of us. And there’s very stripped down versions but that’s got like quite a lot on it. I had a bit of a purple patch when I decided to do the reprise. Sometimes we could be in the studio days trying to come up with something. One afternoon and evening I just had this idea and it all just for once, it all just came together really quickly. And I was like on fire and I thought, wow, that’s brilliant. It’s great when you can do that when you yourself are really pleased with what’s come out, and I guess that’s all part of the creative process. Occasionally you get some great moments. Other times I could be in all day deciding on a part or a sound and going, that’s not really working, and you come in the next day, within seconds, you’ve got it. So we see the writing, the recording and the live as quite separate mediums, really. Does that make sense?
Yeah, there’s extra textures on some of the material as well. ‘What You Wish For’ from that album is a case in point. In a good way, there’s so many different sounds coming in that record that you can hear. There’s elements of country, there’s Indian, there’s Latin.
Carmelo: You’ve got good ears. [laughs] Well, to be honest, Jason, we kind of wrestle with it a little bit. So the recording process on that album, we started out with the idea of doing quite a strip down, even though recorded there would be some things on there. But I just keep trying things out and then liking what we’re hearing. And it just develops. But we wrestle with the fact that quite often you might find an album that has an identity all the way through. Even well known bands, and after the first couple of tracks, the sound and the ideas will be pretty similar from start to end. We worry that we’re quite broad. But then we go, well, that’s what we do. And even live, we cover so many areas musically. And so, it’s what it is. I started doing a bit of slide and using a bit of pedal steel. We did an album in the late 90s called ‘Where Rivers Meet’, which had a real East West feel. Those Indian influences stayed with the subsequent albums, but less and less. To start with all we’re trying to do is please ourselves. What’s important is that Kiki and I love what we’ve done. Then the hope is that you put it out there and maybe we can get some other people to love it too. But nothing comes out of this studio unless Kiki and I are in love with it.
Kiki: The privilege of age.
Carmelo: Yeah, it’s quite an interesting question that you’ve posed there. As I said, we talk about it. We might be driving to a gig. We used to have a manager called Steve Brown, a wonderful man. He’d say the needle, that’s how long ago he was talking about. He’d say “When you make an album, wherever it drops on the album, you should know where it is.” And those words still go around in our minds, but I’m not so sure. The album hangs together as an entity. 29 years we’ve been working together and we’ve only got four studio albums. But we love each one and we still make an album in its entirety, hopefully to be in this day and age, to be listened to from start to finish. So when you started talking, you’ve obviously listened and you’ve listened well and we really appreciate that.
It’s quite a remarkable thing that you both do in that there is that diverse range of influences. But as you say, it does all hang together in your live performances as well. You tour a lot and it’s definitely worth mentioning that you’ve got quite a lot of UK dates coming up from September into November. But as well as pulling in influences for your own material live, you also, interestingly, pull in some great versions of other artists’ songs. And you were doing ‘Running Up That Hill’ by Kate Bush long before, it came to prominence in recent years.
Kiki: We love that. We actually did send our version of it to Kate Bush. We got a lovely Christmas card back saying “I really like it.” And I think what she liked was that it wasn’t a copy. It was just taking this beautiful song she’d written and giving it a twist, if you like. And that was complementary, wasn’t it?
Carmelo: Very, yeah. Our shows these days, I’m often saying, you know, when we talk about it, I say this is a keeper because we have been doing it a while and we try lots of ideas and some of them might stay in the set for a while and then we move on to something else. We almost think we’ve written ourselves that one. I love that arrangement. And sometimes when we rehearse in our studio here, I might be set up and I’ll be playing and I’m waiting for Kiki to arrive, you know, when she comes in, as soon as she starts singing, it’s like, oh, yeah. It’s great. Oh, I have to point out what is remarkable about that arrangement, Kiki’s vocals, there’s hardly any lines that are exactly the same. Kiki’s messed about with that and she’s just done that spontaneously. I know she’s sat next to me, but one of her many gifts are her improvisational abilities which are astounding. She can really just twist a melody up down across, and I’m going, wow, that’s great. You know, so that one, that’s a keeper. [laughs]
You mentioned only doing four studio albums, but the amount of live dates that you’ve done, it seems like you thrive in that life setting, bringing the music to the people.
Kiki: Thank you. I think I speak for both of us when I say that it’s all about connection with the audience and hoping that you’ll get an emotional response. And people can identify with the lyrics and the music. And it’s always a challenge, actually. I’m always a little bit nervous before I go on. After 60 years, that’s no bad thing. I think it means that you are still trying to push it and not just phone everything in, but we do try. And because there’s only two of us up there, there is a lot of space in the music which can be quite magical.
Carmelo: I kept getting accused of copying that red headed guy with my loop pedal and everything! I’ve had one for years and that’s really helped us to expand our sound a bit. If I take the last couple of weeks. We’ve done three completely different environments. We played at the end of July in King’s Lynn in a beautiful, really old mediaeval theatre. That was our normal show as such, our longer show. Then we were on a ship and we played for one night on a cruise ship. And we still did some of our original stuff as well, which was when we were surrounded by quite a lot of, how can I put it, tribute acts. It was quite hard to know, this is our path. And then last week, we played at Cropredy Festival, an outdoor festival. So a theatre, ship, an outdoor festival. I think maybe a little bit sparked off from COVID, because we had to cancel 44 shows like many people had to. And when we started gigging again, and I had a realisation, how can I put this in a nicest way that we’re of a certain age and we better get going. We just love it and want to do this while we can because health can get in the way sometimes. So our agent keeps feeding us these shows. It’s kind of hard work in a different way, as I explained earlier to being in the studio, because obviously the audience doesn’t see all the getting there and the setting up and all the rest of it. But there comes a moment when you’re on stage where when it’s going well, you could just play all night. You get the connection that Kiki was talking about. You put it out there and you wish and hope that they come to you and sooner or later, they usually do.
It’s interesting that you mentioned that point about connection. For me, some of the greatest songwriters are able to emote the feelings of their life or an element of their life and then convey that to the listener. And that’s the bit where magic happens. One of the examples that you did as a duo was, for me, is ‘She’s Smiling Now’, a song from your album, ‘A Place Where I Could Go’. Kiki, that was about your mother, wasn’t it?
Kiki: Yeah, I love singing that song because, you always get someone after the show going, “Oh, I totally got that song, it made me think of my mum.” It’s about the privilege of making it to old age. And my mum, when she was 80, we lost my dad and she moved into an apartment. She suddenly wasn’t just a mum, she was Mary, this lady, and she had friends, and they went on trips and they did things together. Sometimes you tend to think of your parents as just being your mum and dad. You don’t always think of them as people outside. And that’s really what that song’s about.
You’re from a very down to earth upbringing. The bonus of that is that it keeps you very level headed.
Kiki: Absolutely. I can’t imagine who I’d be if I hadn’t had that stability. Because it’s a crazy old business, the music industry. I don’t feel like I’m in the industry any more. I feel like I’m just an artist now, which is great. But yeah, I was definitely plucked out of Bradford when I was 16 and given a new name and all that stuff. And so yeah, it was quite a tough teenage life. But having said that, imagine being 16 and arriving in London in 63, when everything was kicking off. It was just magical actually. The atmosphere in the city, for a teenager, was quite something.
You were spotted singing live in Leeds about 60 years ago, weren’t you?
[laughs] Kiki: Yeah, I was, it’s not there any more, but it was at the Astoria Ballroom. They had a dance band. I’m quite sure how I got the gig. I was working at Boots Chemist, Carmelo calls it a proper job. I did that for three months, 12 weeks on the men’s counter. The best-seller was Wilkinson’s Sword Edge razor blades. But anyway, that wasn’t destined to be my life. I worked three times a week at the Astoria with this band. And we did things like 40s jazz covers, ‘I Wish You Love’, standards and pop songs of the day. It was quite something. I obviously had the ears from a young age, or I wouldn’t have been able to sing with that kind of set-up. Wow, I’m trying to go back. The reason I’ve never written a book is that my memory is rubbish. But it keeps me young, it keeps me moving on in the moment and beyond.
Your debut single was ‘Early Night’, which does hold up. Was it the songwriter Mitch Murray? He was influential in that early period, wasn’t he?
Kiki: He was a big songwriter, yeah. And in fact, I went to a birthday party of Gary Osborne, who wrote the lyrics to ‘Amoureuse’, my first Top of the Pops. Yay! And Mitch Murray was there. This is not, not long ago, a couple of years ago. Mitch Murray and I were chatting and he said, you know I was at the audition. And he happened to be in the office of the record company Fontana Records near Marble Arch. Jack Baverstock, the A&R man said to Mitch, “Will you stay? Because I’m auditioning this girl from Yorkshire.” He wasn’t really that up for it. And Mitch stayed. And then apparently Mitch said to Jack, “Well, you’re going to have a problem now, you’re going to have to sign her, aren’t you?” [laughs] So it was one of those bizarre things. And it was a bit like a movie because my dad and I drove down to, I think we stayed in a B&B in Finchley. And I did this audition, I can’t remember what I sang, actually. You see, that’s typical, I can’t remember! And yeah, I got the audition. Got the part, as they say, and that was it.
You were very active in the 60s, a number of your songs were hits on the pirate stations. There’s also some great footage in films that you were in with the Small Faces, etc. So it must have been very exciting.
Kiki: That film, Ken Cope, the actor, starred in it. I think it was about smuggling drugs on a pirate radio ship. And there’s a couple of funny scenes in it where I’m singing away in a nightclub and there’s a 60 piece orchestra. I’m just standing there on my own miming. But to be in a movie, I’ve never actually spoken in a movie. I’ve never had dialogue. But to sing like that was quite something. I must say, in the 60s, everything was going on, there were all the Britpop girls like Sandie, Cilla, Lulu, and they were all getting hits. I never really thought anybody heard my music. In the early 70s, I found out that some of my songs were Northern Soul hits.
Like ‘On A Magic Carpet Ride’, that’s one of them, isn’t it?
Kiki: Yeah, if you’ve got an original single, it’s worth about £500.
Carmelo: I don’t know if it’s more now. Someone said in the thousands the other day. Because there’s loads of reissues, but if you’ve got the original.
Kiki: It’s bonkers, isn’t it? But I think we’re coming back again to that tenacity. I think I must have had a lot of tenacity because they always say successful people fail the most. I love these little sayings. Because if you’re not in the ring, you won’t get knocked over. I just kept bouncing up again. I must have believed deep down that I was going to make it if there was such a thing.
You were also backing vocals for a lot of hit records as well. One of them might have been Everlasting Love by the Love Affair. And some of Dusty’s material.
Kiki: Yeah, Dusty. I was a huge Springfields fan when I was 13, 14. And loved her, loved her look with the big skirts and the hair and I loved the harmonies that they did. And when the record company found me a personal manager for my career, two weeks after he signed me, he signed Dusty. So I got to sing on a lovely track she did called ‘Some of Your Lovin’, a song by Carole King. It’s a beautiful vocal. If you listen to Dusty’s voice, she just sounds so comfortable. And I got to sing some of the backups with a great singer, Madeline Bell, who’s still a friend to this day.
Carmelo: ‘Little By Little’.
Kiki: ‘Little By Little’ I did as well.
One of the great things is you’ve had a series of box sets covering some of the material you released before you had hit records. Some of that also includes the material that you recorded with Motown in the late 60s, early 70s, which again holds up. ‘The Day Will Come Between Sunday and Monday’ is one of my highlights.
Kiki: Thank you so much. The thing is I got a three month stint in Detroit when I was about 20. And they invited me over there. I thought it was a wind up, but they did. When you were a fledgling artist with a label at the time, they used to give you other people’s backing tracks. So there was a track that had been recorded by Syreeta Wright, who married Stevie Wonder. Of course, it was in her key. So at the end of the song, I’m the only one who knows this, but I’m [sings in a high voice]! But what was lovely about ‘The Day Will Come Between Sunday and Monday’ was that it was one of the four tracks that was recorded for me in the original studio, which is now the Museum of Motown. That was tailor made for my key. And I’m quite proud of that vocal, actually, because it’s very wordy. It was written, I’m pretty sure, by an English girl called Pam Sawyer, who went over to America quite young. She wrote the lyrics to ‘Love Child’ by Diana Ross. She did quite a lot of in-house writing for them. She was lovely. My producer was Frank Wilson, who had one of the early hits on Motown, ‘Do I Love You (Indeed I do)’ Then he went on to be a producer and another amazing experience, you know, for a young woman.
Elton John was important in terms of another shift in your career, including getting you signed to his label Rocket. But he was just as important through encouraging you as a songwriter. ‘Loving and Free’, for example, a brilliant song, a shift in sound, a bit more singer songwriter. So it must have been so encouraging that you’ve got someone who really believed in you.
Kiki: Yeah, we’re exactly the same age, although I’m three weeks older than he is, although I don’t let him forget that! [laughs] But Elton’s a force, isn’t he?! He was very, very supportive. I mean, he produced two albums on Rocket between 73 and 78 for me and got me writing. I remember playing ‘Loving and Free’ to him. He loved it and it became the title of the album. We always get the fans singing it at the end of our show, which is so lovely because people seem to know the lyrics because it’s such a simple song. I always say to the audience now, it’s interesting singing this song that was written when I was 20, 21 about how I felt and singing it now at my age, 60 years on. But it still holds up in its simplicity. Thank you for liking it.
From that period you ultimately had a huge hit with ‘Amoureuse’. For me it’s an incredible record, the production on it, the vocals and the backing is immaculate. And that’s tied to a lyric that is so mature as well. So that was Gary Osbourne putting those French lyrics beautifully into English.
Kiki: The only line he took from French was ‘I feel the rainfall of another planet’. He completely changed the rest and it was written by a lady called Vanique Sanson, who’s still a big star in France. And how fabulous to get a hit record finally with a great song with an everlasting song. Because it could have been something quite commercial and disposable. So I’m always grateful. And as you say, the production, the way it builds up. Carmelo was saying earlier, we did the Cropredy Festival last weekend in Oxfordshire. Dave Mattacks, who played drums on ‘Amoureuse’, was there because he works with Fairport Convention. And he actually got up and jammed with us with one of Robert Plant’s band, Saving Grace, Tony Kelsey. So we had Dave on drums and Tony Kelsey on electric guitar on ‘I’ve Got The Music In Me’. So that was really great because we don’t often collaborate live, do we? So it was quite something. But yeah, beautiful production on ‘Amoureuse’ and all power to Elton and Clive Franks. He produced the two albums with a guy called Clive Franks, who was his sound engineer for 35 years live.
Moving into ‘I’ve Got The Music In Me’, labelled as the Kiki Dee Band. I’ve just been watching some of the live videos from that period and you were presented very much as a group. What was the background behind moving from Kiki Dee to the band?
Kiki: Elton had produced the ‘Loving and Free’ album. And then because I was on Rocket, Gus Dudgeon came in to produce. Actually, he did produce ‘Don’t Could Breaking My Heart’, but that’s later. But I think it was just an evolution of, again, I think if you were a band or like Kiki Dee & Carmelo Luggeri, it says that you’re in the music. It says that you’re doing it for the music. And I think that was part of the reason that we did have a band. It didn’t keep going, which in some ways was a shame. But we did get to tour with Elton John around America a couple of times. That was quite something. I think what got ‘I’ve Got The Music In Me’ into the American charts was the fact that we were doing all these stadium gigs, doing a 45 minute set before Elton came on. So lots of people heard it and it went in the American charts. I watched some of those clips, actually. My voice sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? [laughs]
It does.
Kiki: I’m a little bit lower now. But I still do it in the same key. But I’ve blues it up a bit now because you can twist that song around quite a bit and have fun with it.
It was quite apt being the Kiki Dee Band because it was by Bias Boshell who was your keyboardist, who wrote ‘I’ve Got The Music In Me’, didn’t he?
Kiki: Yeah, he did. He’s a lovely man and a great keyboard player. I asked him if he had any uptempo songs for one of the tours. ‘Music In Me’ had been on the shelf for a couple years at the publisher’s and we got it out. I was writing a lot of little slow songs, quite emotive songs and so this was a bit of a departure. But I think at that time because I was a young adult now I was quite influenced by the singer -songwriter scene that was going on in California with Joni Mitchell and people like that. By the way, Carmelo and I met Joni Mitchell last year. Much to our excitement I played Dodger Stadium with Elton on his last North American tour. We did ‘Don’t Could Breaking My Heart’. So that was a thrill. So I was influenced by singer-songwriters, Elton used to send me albums, he sent me a Jackson Browne album in the early 70s. So yeah he’s amazing.
‘Don’t Could Breaking My Heart’ was a huge hit with Elton. That showed another side to you so that kind of put an accelerator to your career. It must have been quite a shift.
Kiki: Thank goodness I’d had a couple of hits and I had the experience of celebrity. [laughs] It’s funny because it wasn’t going to be a duet. I was going to do a few backing vocals on the track and Gus Dudgeon said you know we should do this as a duet. The video was done in 20 minutes and it was all very random really and just a nice song. No one was attached at all and isn’t it funny that it became so global and everlasting. An interviewer once said to me in a questionnaire interview he said ‘Don’t Could Breaking My Heart’, milestone or millstone, and I think it’s a bit of both really.
There’s a great album of yours that was recorded in that period but wasn’t released until relatively recently ‘Cage the Songbird’.
Kiki: Yeah I know.
Jason: It seemed such a lost opportunity. That was a fabulous record.
Kiki: Thank you. I’ve had a couple of albums that didn’t get released and I think it’s this identity thing. I’ve always had it. We were talking earlier about being eclectic and someone once said to me actually years ago you know if you’ve been born in the west of Ireland and your father was a fiddle player in a folk band and you’d grown up in that world and that’s what you did. It’s almost easier but I had all these early influences, Tamla Motown and the pop records from the 60s that were going on. I think I’ve learned to embrace that wide range that I’ve always had in terms of material, but it was very hard commercially if you weren’t one thing in those days.
I’ve spoken to Bill Schnee, the producer and engineer before. One of his favourite moments from his whole career in the studio was working with you to record ‘Stay With Me’. It’s one of his great performances. He talked to me about really pushing you with that vocal performance and trying to get that balance of getting it out of you without pushing you too much. Do you recall that moment recording that track?
Kiki: I remember the challenge of it because the Lorraine Ellison record was an all-time classic and I thought, what am I doing singing this song. It’s quite vocal isn’t it, that he got out of me. Carmelo always says actually that his records because he was an engineer.
Carmelo: He’s great.
Kiki: Yeah they always have a great sound. What a lovely man as well. I haven’t spoken to him in years. The nature of music and having a long career, it’s funny how you meet people you’re very intimate with and you’re sharing all these sensitivities and then you don’t see them again. Then you go on to the next one. You’ve got all these people in your life that you’d love to chat with but you never get round to it because you meet so many people. But I would always wish him well. He did get quite a vocal out of me I must say.
Carmelo: It’s an amazing track. Well done.
Kiki: I don’t think I could sing it in that key now I’ll tell you. Gosh.
Carmelo: Sounds like you needed to gargle with Listerine for a week after that. [laughs]
Kiki: No auto tune in those days.
Given my age as a child in the 1980s, there was one song that was on every single week and that was ‘Star’. It typified the 80s and that was a hit for you in I think 1981. Do you remember coming across that song and how that happened?
Kiki: Well, I was working by this time with a producer called Pip Williams, who’s a lovely man. He worked with Status Quo and quite a lot of rock bands. It’s not Carmelo’s favourite song. We don’t actually do it live. It’s the one that doesn’t fit. We haven’t been able to make it fit with what we do. And we don’t do a slowed down version. But I think it was a great record, but it was very much again, something different from the other stuff I’d done. The lyric by Doreen Chanter was definitely before its time. It’s talking about the star system. Imagine that, that you believe what you read. It’s quite a lyric.
Into the late 80s, another side of your career, was moving into theatre work. That must have been a different dynamic.
Kiki: Yeah, it came at the right time for me. I was asked to audition by Bill Kenwright to do Blood Brothers. Barbara Dickson had done it in 81 and the production had not lasted for some reason, although she did a great job. I don’t know why I didn’t last. I think the theatre wasn’t booked or something ridiculous. So in 87, Bill Kenwright took it over and I got the part and I had three weeks from the day that I got the part to get up and perform the lead. It was quite something. I don’t think I’ve ever worked as hard in all my life. I had my script under my pillow at night and if I woke up in the night, I’d just learn another line and another song and another dance step. But what an experience. Musically, I think I needed a break. I’d started so early and it was really work a day and I loved working with a team. I got to work with some actors like Con O’Neill and Sarah Lancashire and they were just so good. Eventually I got nominated for a Laurence Olivier award. I got pipped to the post by Patricia Routledge but I didn’t mind because I’m not an actor. I have to confess towards the end after doing it for a long time and then leaving and then coming back. I was actually like a prisoner in a cell. I was ticking off the days when it was going to be finished, this last run. I must have done over a thousand shows. But what an amazing musical, Blood Brothers. I’d say it’s one of the top experiences that I’ve had in my life doing that show.
Then into the 90s you became a musical duo and embarked on a whole new phase and rebirth of your career with Carmelo. How did you guys meet and how did you come to make music together?
Carmelo: Well, I mentioned Steve Brown earlier. He sort of discovered Elton’s ‘Your song’.
Kiki: He worked for Elton’s Publishers.
Carmelo: DJM, yeah, and he produced Elton’s first album. He left the music business for a while, then he came back as Elton’s sort of creative manager for many years. I’d worked for him on various projects. Elton and Kiki had another hit just before I met her, ‘True Love’. And they were pipped at the post to the number one spot at Christmas by Mr Blobby. But on the back of that, there was a very best of Kiki Dee album. And I was brought in to produce a couple of bonus tracks. That’s when I heard her and I just flipped really. Steve obviously went way back with Kiki and both of us at that time came more from sort of band backgrounds. We went on a radio tour, an acoustic guitar, every radio station, a quick interview, a quick song.
Then he started saying, “When you play an acoustic, there’s something happening”. And I said, “Oh yeah”. And he encouraged us to get together to write and it was much more about painting your own painting, regardless of what’s going on around you commercially. That’s what we started doing. And it’s and that’s really the direction we’ve been in ever since. It’s always about experimenting. Let’s try this. I often say this, it’s been a wonderful 29 years for me. It’s amazing working with Kiki. We’re at a stage now with writing, where if you’ve got a ridiculous idea, you’re not embarrassed at all to come up with it. We’re so past all that. But part of the mission, if you like, has been I want the world to see all the other sides to Kiki other than that song, and there is so much depth to her creatively in so many ways. Hopefully we’re still on that journey, it’s just been brilliant. So that’s how it started. We went from there under Steve’s guidance to start with.
I’ve chosen ‘Forward Motion’ to close. I wanted to check that you felt that that was a good song to finish, or are there any others that you feel might be good to cover?
Kiki: That would suit me.
Carmelo: That represents Kiki, forward motion. I love the fact that Kiki wants to move on all the time. I want the world to see her as a forward looking artist, not a retro artist. It’s quite hard, you can imagine, you know, everybody wants that song but as I just said, so that is about moving forward. And we enjoyed doing it. Live is slightly different. I talked earlier about the loop pedal. I go bonkers at the end. It’s just distorting like mad. It sounds horrible, but it’s very exciting. I get a little carried away sometimes. So ‘Forward Motion’. Why not?
A final opportunity to mention your imminent dates across the UK from the 7th of September. And I can see dates on your website, Kiki and Carmelo, which go into November. If you live in the UK, you’re able to travel over, there’s no excuse not not to get down to one of the shows.
Carmelo: We’re into next year as well, there’s loads coming up. Even next year, our agent’s put them in there. It’s like yeah, come on, then, while we can. Let’s go. [laughs]
Kiki: But I was going to say thank you so much for such a thorough research on us as well. It’s made it a real pleasure to talk to you.
Carmelo: Thanks, Jason. Obviously, the fact that you like some of what we’ve done, that…
Kiki: That always helps.
Carmelo: That’s obviously a job done for us too. It’s what it’s about, so thank you.
Further information
Kiki and Carmelo’s UK tour starts on 7 September 2023
Podcast coming soon.
