Interview: Nik Kershaw

It’s more than 40 years since Nik exploded onto the UK pop scene as a chart-topping solo artist. Hits including Wouldn’t it Be Good, and I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me, saw him spend 62 weeks on the UK singles chart throughout 1984 and 1985. He even performed at Live Aid in front of an estimated worldwide audience of 1.9 billion.

But it’s not just as a solo artist that Nik has enjoyed global success – he’s also written and produced best-selling songs for Elton John, Gary Barlow, Lulu, and many more. He even wrote the Chesney Hawkes smash The One And Only, which spent five weeks at number one and cracked the top 10 in the USA. 

All that as well as being the founder of his own record label Shorthouse Records, it’s fair to say that Nik has plenty to talk about – and that’s exactly what he’s doing on his intimate theatre tour, Musings & Lyrics. Let’s find out more, shall we?

Image: Michelle Martin

Nik, tell us about your tour.

“I’ve loved the solo shows I’ve done so far. On until 23 November, it’s giving me a chance to share songs, stories and have a Q&A session with the audience.”

So what’s the best question you’ve been asked ?

“A few years ago someone said, ‘Nik, can you sing Fantastic Day for us?’ I had to break the news that I wasn’t Nick Heyward, and that they’d booked tickets for the wrong show!”

Anything else?

“I get asked a lot about Live Aid, which was unlike anything else I’ve ever done. It was an incredible experience, and I feel very privileged to have been part of it. When you realise just how many people were involved behind the scenes in making that event happen, it’s amazing.”

Take us back to your time in the Mid-Eighties

“My feet didn’t touch the ground for about two years. It was like my life was on rails and I couldn’t get off the train.”

But by the end of the Eighties you quit performing. Why?

“I’d become disillusioned with being a performer, so took a step back to write and produce for other artists. Some were written on my own; some in collaboration with others; some for established artists, some for hopeful idiots; some for major label projects; some just for the hell of it!”

Did you have a process when writing them?

“I used to wake up in the middle of the night with great ideas for a song and have to write them down. Or they’d come to me when I was driving the car, or out on a walk. I’d start whistling a tune, and it would grow from there. But the really successful songs came to me relatively quickly. They weren’t difficult to write, and just sort of happened – that’s often the way.”

What’s different when you’re not writing your own songs?

“It’s a very different process. You may have very strong views about something, either spiritually or politically, which would feel right for you to sing. You can’t do that for others – it has to be more generic. Harmonically I used to go off all over the place, but you can’t really do that when you are writing for others, either. You have to operate within certain parameters.”

And that’s what took you back to singing again?

“Operating within those parameters became the thing that frustrated me the most. I realised I couldn’t really go for it and write some of the songs I wanted to because no-one else was going to sing them, so I decided I was just going to have to sing them myself!”

Image: Michelle Martin

So are you still singing now?

“I still do gigs, which I enjoy, but don’t have the same hunger and drive to be constantly creating new material that I had in my 20s. There will be another album at some point, though. At the moment I’m just not sure what it will be, and when. You always have to think that your best-ever album is still to come – there’s no point in doing this otherwise.”

Back to the show and the question we all want to know: will you be giving us a definitive answer to the meaning of your1984 hit The Riddle and reveal once and for all what it was all about?

“Yes – I’ve developed a new way of explaining it, and the process I went through when I was creating it. No spoilers, though – you’ll have to come to one of the shows or buy my book to find out.”

Buy tickets to one of Nik’s shows here and his book here.