Vinyl Score
Written by: Glenn Savage
Source: Xpress Mag

It is an overcast English morning, grey clouds in the sky. PJ Harvey has spent the morning playing guitar and listening to her dusty collection of vinyl 45s. A flipside to the banality of en masse consumed glossy commercial radio hits, a plague to which Polly Jean expresses deep dismay. Polly's dad was a Stones fan. She now owns the collection.

The stripped back sound of '60s and '70s vinyl has re-kindled her desire to rock 'n' roll. After the orchestrally sprinkled Stories From the City, Stories From The Sea, Harvey has chosen to get back to basics, empowering herself with the motive to write beautiful raw rock songs. Guitar led, gritty three-piece rock 'n' roll. Like the early raw stuff, circa '92: The PJ Harvey Band.

10 years on from those heady establishing days, Polly Jean Harvey's passion has not waned. She simply oozes inspiration, and is delighted at the impending opportunity to preview her new material to eager Australian audiences during her up-coming Australian tour. PJ Harvey is an artist lead by the beauty and simplicity of an enduring love that guides her life - to play guitar and sing her songs to the world.

Well known for her lusty media timidity, it is somewhat of a connoisseurs delight for X-Press to nab a rare chat with this honest, impassioned and genuinely remarkable figure of rock music. Her soft, modest tone, elating aura and genuine politeness, reveals nothing of the last decade of turbulent success, artistic experimentation and worldwide crowd adoration. She is a symbol for everything that is beautiful in music. PJ Harvey will be in Perth at the Claremont Showgrounds on Sunday, February 2, as part of the Big Day Out. She will also hold a satellite show at the Perth Concert Hall on Monday, February 3.

This week's interview was conducted via phone from Harvey's English home.

Besides the recent Gordon Gano single Hitting The Ground and your January tour announcement, Australia hasn't heard a lot from PJ Harvey in recent times - what has been happening lately?
Well I'm at home in England at the moment, and I've actually been writing a lot. We have just recently started rehearsing for our tour in January to Australia. I have been doing a lot of singing and guitar playing and writing.

After the apparent success of your 2000 tour, I would assume that you are eager to return?
Oh, Australia is amazing. It's fantastic. I had just such an amazing time when I played there a couple of years ago. I just had the best time ever, and I've just been waiting and waiting to come back. The audiences were incredible. The Enmore in Sydney was a particularly amazing show, but I really just remember all of them because they were individually so great. The audiences were fantastic, and I'm just so glad that we have the opportunity to come back.

Is there any reason why you have chosen to return to the Big Day Out festival just two years after your last appearance on the circuit?
The Big Day Out is just run so well. It is run so much better than any festival I have ever known. Glastonbury is another one, another festival at which I really enjoy playing. Actually, Australia is the only place that I will be playing for all of next year, and the Glastonbury festival I will play, but that's it because I will be recording.

After the Limp Bizkit mosh-pit tragedy, it is rare to hear good words directed towards the BDO organisers.
Yes. Well, they look after you very well and it is just a very pleasant tour to be on. I am so glad that I have been offered the opportunity to return and play.

So the touring schedule will be fairly light, and I'm assuming due to your apparent shyness towards the media that there won't be many interviews and publicity commitments?
No I don't like doing interviews. I don't like talking to the press often. In fact, I am only doing six interviews for the entire tour next year and this is one of them. It is very rare for me to want to talk to people like this. I don't often feel like saying much really.

Audiences who witnessed your 2001 Perth performance would remember an amazing show, with a distinct lack of PJ on guitar. Will your up-coming shows continue this vocal-centred orchestrated trend?
No, no. I really love playing my guitar at the moment; I've just been sitting at home playing so much lately. I'm really back into that simple three person dynamic. I go through stages where I prefer to play a lot of guitars, and then I prefer to sing more. I have just been really loving playing guitar lately... playing guitar all the time, and writing a lot.

So the extensive band line up of the last tour will be somewhat curtailed?
Yes... (Laughs) it will be very minimal and raw. Quite different to last time. I will just be bringing the drummer and bassist, the three-piece set-up. Will you continue with the elevation towards beautiful orchestral styled pieces or revert in an anti-complexity fashion towards a more traditional sound? I think the only theme for this album can be a back to basics approach, I mean I've always been into guitars, and guitar music and I am really enjoying the stripped back raw, fucked up, minimal sound I that listen to and that I am making.

So you have been writing some material towards a new album?
Well I have really just been working towards this album for the last year now. I have just written so much material. About 35 songs in fact, however I am also being very critical, more than ever before. Of those 35 there are only really six that I really want to include on the album. I am really just waiting for four more to come along before I commit to a date for recording. March is when I plan to record again, after we return from Australia and the Big Day Out. If all goes well, the new album will sound very beautiful and minimal and raw.

So maybe we might hear it the end of 2003 some time?
Well, hopefully, yet I'm not worried, I really just figure I can take my time with this one, and wait for the songs to sound the way I want them to. There's really no reason for me to rush to get the recording out, at this stage in my career.

Is your work with Gordon Gano any indication of the new material?
Well it's funny, because most people think that is a new song because it's the last thing of mine they've heard, however I actually recorded that track many years ago in 1995. Gordon was working on the soundtrack to the movie with the same name Hitting Down, and the movie never actually got released in many places and the album has just been released this year so everybody's talking about it like it's a new song, which I guess is understandable, yet still strange.

Is there anything in particular that has inspired your return to rawness?
Well I've been listening to a lot of vinyl 45s lately, a lot of my own and a lot of my dad's. I've actually been listening to vinyl this morning, and playing guitar.

Yeah, my mum has a healthy collection of original Beatles vinyl, which is so cool to listen to.
Yeah it's funny isn't it, your parents are either Stones people or Beatles people, and mine chose the Stones. It's really amazing all these old records that I have acquired. I love it, the rawness and scratchiness of it is just so real, and so amazing to hear. In my own music, that's what I'm trying to do at the moment. Get back to basics, that raw sound that I've always loved.

So there'll be no glossed up radio hits for you?
Oh no, certainly not...! (Laughs), they make me feel so dull and uninspired those songs. They are the last avenue I'd ever enter. In fact, I've mentioned to a few people that I really want to get away from that commercial glossy sound, and get back in touch with everything about being raw. As I said, I'm a scratchy vinyl lover now, and actually I am shopping for it more and more.

There is nothing more relaxing than Saturday afternoon vinyl shopping...
Yes, yes! Ah, this is fantastic; I've been searching for so long to find someone to share my love of vinyl. Surprisingly, none of the people I know can relate to my passion for all the old records I consume. And I really consume. I really like to go vinyl shopping, dedicated, you need that vinyl fix. I just love the old 45s and the way they spin around, the little scratching sounds they make, and the way they sound just so real.

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea signified somewhat of a peak in your career as a musician, with all the themes that you've been exploring coming together quite well - where you will head thematically on the next release?
Um, well I guess you could say that the new material is not so much thematic, yet if there was a theme it would be that back to basics feel. Like Stories From The City had its very New York theme, and these songs have their raw and minimal theme I guess.

Not many artists from the early '90s have endured the last decade, which has seen a lot of changes - do you think that it is this constantly evolving side of PJ Harvey that has ensured your popularity over all this time?
I think a lot of it has to do with possessing a real passion for what I do. Music is always my passion and I think its great that after 10 or 12 years I still retain that passion for what I do, and not only that, but that people are still interested and wanting to hear more material. It is amazing. I've never considered an option other than music. I will always love what I do. I just can't see a point in the future when I won't love it, or won't want to continue writing. Music is everything to me.