PJ Harvey spoke to New Musical Express in London last month and vowed that it was the last time ever that she intended to speak to any media. Or tour. The near anorexic announced that she doesn't think interviews are "healthy" and although she hasn't told Island, her record company, yet, she insisted to the NME that that was it, her last interview, ever. But then again, Harvey often verges on the hysteric, a quality that drives her powerful and brutal genius. "I've tried to feel more comfortable with the idea of stardom and it hasn't worked. I've done it for four years and it doesn't get easier. I'm just going to say no." Ironically, Harvey's latest album, To Bring You My Love, is the most accessible and least neurotic of her three albums, leading one to believe she might have left her haunted past behind. She fired her long-time bass player Steve Vaughan, and drummer Robert Ellis, and played most of the instruments herself, with a little help from long-time collaborator and friend John Parish, Bad Seed Mick Harvey and Joe Gore, Tom Wait's guitarist. She also passed on Steve Albini, who produced the abrasive Rid Of Me for the gentler Flood (of U2 renown). Harvey has also decided not to play guitar on-stage anymore, intending instead to concentrate more fully on her singing. The album will be in the stores on February 28, and a brief tour of the UK will begin on March 4 in Glasgow. She will be opening some dates for R.E.M., and plans to tour America, although there are no firm dates yet. Harvey promises that she'll go to the U. S. "a lot, because this time, more than with Dry or Rid Of Me, they might understand." |
