That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Dave Stewart

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Legendary musician, producer and songwriter, Dave Stewart, joins Gaby to share in the joy of music and art and using your imagination. They talk about his time in Eurythmics, how he and Annie came up with the melody for 'Sweet Dreams', playing to 3 people on New Year's Eve and why he wants young musicians to forget about algorithms and DSPs and just go out and play live. Dave also tells Gaby about his new venture 'Rare' - and also about the show he's written for young kids, to inspire them.

Dave Stewart, you are, you're not going to like the word, but I'm going to use it, okay? Let's just get it out the way. Legend, done, got the word out there. Okay. But it's, you have, it's very interesting. When I told everybody that I was going to be chatting to you on the podcast, they said, oh, he's worked with everybody. And I said, no, but it's not the everybody I want to talk about.

It's the you I want to talk about. And everybody always, in all the interviews that I was reading, they always say, so, Dave, what was it like working with? Oh, my word. Don't you think, hello, this is me. So this is about you, Dave. Very good. First time, probably.

All right, let's talk about you. How did this all you? And I don't mean that as we know you now and all the years of work and music. Was it something that you always wanted to do? How did it all start? Well, what happened was when I was about 14, I just only thought about playing for Sunderland football team.

And I played for about three teams on a Saturday, and that's all I thought about. And I would just play under the streetlights until my dad shouted, you know, get in the house and whatever. But then this kid broke my knee in about three places, playing football. And, yeah, I was in hospital, I had an operation, but at the same time my mom left my dad

and then my brother had already moved out to go to college somewhere so I'm just sitting in the living room you know slate grey sky horizontal rain hitting the window in Sunderland and I got my leg up with like plaster and everything and I'm thinking well that's it I'm screwed I mean did you really think you honestly thought that at such young age I never listened to music at all, you see, until that happened. And so I was just staring at the window going, let's see, end of me.

And very fortunate that my cousin, which is quite funny because he's about eight years older maybe. When he was about 13, in Sunderland, you've got to imagine this, picture it. He started talking with a Memphis drawl. Right, so all these kids They go, now fucking shut up Where I'll smash you, right? And he'd go, I don't care what y'all's saying about me And they go...

When he was 13? Yeah, he kept doing it. I think he'd seen Elvis on the telly or something. Oh. And he just, all he would do is talk in this Memphis stroll Or talk about Memphis. And everybody thought, God, he's nuts, you know. And then this postman came to the door

when I was really depressed, 14, staring out the window. And he had a box. And in Sunderland, right, the postman's got a box back in that period. It was quite unusual because I had an American stamp, Memphis stamped on it. So I hobbled to the door,

and the postman was like trying to give me it, but not letting go, kind of. He wants to see what's in it. You wanted to know what was in it? Yeah, and so, I sort of grappled it off him, hobbled back in the living room, and it was for me, and who got all the way to Memphis. Your cousin?

Yeah, and he's still there. I could ring him up now, and he'd answer in the Memphis straw, and he lives in Memphis. How incredible! I know. He just had a vision, like, I'm going there. So what was in the box? Well, in the box, that's what started the whole music thing. There was two pair of Levi Golden Corderoy jeans, which I'd never seen before.

Yeah. And under it was some, about two or three albums, blues albums, like from the Delta, you know, and Mississippi John Hurt and Robert Johnson, Delta Blues. And yeah, so I thought, well, what's this? My dad had made a homemade record player because he used to go in a workshop and make something out of wood. You made a record player?

Yeah, and he sent away to whatever. to get the electronics and so, but he listened to like the king and I and the sound of music and all this kind of stuff, but I thought, okay, I'll put it on, I'm so bored, and I put on this blues album. And I sort of woke up 30 minutes later, like went into a trance,

as Robert Johnson singing blues. I couldn't quite work out if it was music or not because it was so alien sounding. And then I thought, hang on, I think that's music. So I hobbled in the kitchen and put on the radio, and I'm talking like 1966, I was 14, 73 now. So, boom, 1966 out of the radio, kinks, Rolling Stones, Beatles.

And I was like, fucking hell. So it brought you back, didn't it? It sort of saved you. It saved me. And also, I mean, what a period to put the radio on. Yes. It was like everything coming out of the radio. Sorry to be stupid, but why had you never heard?

Did your parents not have, was music, apart from the musicals, as you said. My dad sang along to these musicals every morning, you know, loud. But no radio or? Well, my brother, he even saw the Beatles play at Sundlin Empire. Oh, my. And my brother liked music, but I was just playing football. I literally had all of the photos of the footballers and I had like strips. And I had, I polished my boots every night.

and put them on the end of my bed and stayed at them as I went to sleep. You know, like, obsessed. Yeah, football was your life. Mm-hmm. And then music brought you back. That's incredible. So when did the playing of it start then?

Well, my brother, he was into music and he had a kind of, he was part of a little folk group with this older, I think he was a teacher from his school or something. And he was getting up to play the banjo and things like that. and I remembered in his wardrobe cupboard,

he left this guitar with five strings on it. So after just listening to the radio like for a few days, I thought, yeah, I think there's... Ah, there's a sandwich on the way. There's a sandwich on the way. I love this. Bring it in, Hannah Cortado. Come on, bring it in.

Come in, Hannah. This is Hannah, my MD, my keyboard player and MD musical day. Oh, there we go. Hey, Hannah, come on it. that we're doing this on the podcast. This is how it should be. There we go. Your mortadella.

Oh, yeah. Oh, exactly. Thank you, Hannah. No worry. Is there 0.7 of a brown sugar in there? There isn't, but I will bring you something right now. Okay, thanks. Is that for real?

Yeah. You should. No way. You get Hannah to bring you 0.7 of a brown sugar. Yeah. That's the most diva thing I have ever had. No, but Hannah is my musical director. of my life band and she's amazing playing and we write songs we made a jazz album together which

it doesn't matter you still i'm sorry dave you've asked her for a seventh of a brown sugar does she how do you measure this out well you know i'm not going to measure this yeah i will i'll just yes exactly good for you hannah i'll look at the various bits oh you're studying the sugar cubes yes this is fantastic we've never had this on the podcast before this looks like about a seven That's not a seventh. That's a... It doesn't matter. Just have it. Well, it's a bit smaller than a seven. This is now turning out to be my favourite podcast ever that we've measured a seventh of a...

I love that that happened. Just love it. He's stirring his... What have you got? What are you drinking? A quartado to try and wake up. As I said, I've been up since 4 o'clock in the morning. You've been up since 4 o'clock in the morning. Yeah, early. It's now the afternoon. You've been up for 12 hours already. I know. You're having your coffee. I'm like up.

seventh of a brown sugar. So Dave, yeah, so you, you, so in the wardrobe was a guitar. Yeah, so obviously I didn't know how to play it or anything. So at first, I'll play a little demonstration. I'll put my fucking guitar pick

down somewhere, probably under the sandwich. It passed with a sugar, I'll take it out of your way. Anyway, I realised that, listen to that blues album, I realised, well, well, what made that noise that made it bluesy. So that's why I tried to work out first,

and I would just play all the notes, like, you know, on one string. Yeah. Then I noticed this note. And I went, oh yeah, that sounds like the thing. So I would do that. This is self-taught. Yeah, and then, and slowly over weeks,

I would start to get that feeling, you know. just over and over and over. And then I realized, oh yeah, the stones are doing this kind of thing and the kinks are doing this kind of thing. And I realized I started to connect the dots. Like, oh, they must have listened to blues music, which they did. You know, they would get it off the... In Liverpool, the Beatles would get it off the sailors,

come back from America, the boats. And they were all listening and trying to get records by Howland, Wolf and all this stuff in the stones. So up in my own little bedroom in Sunderland, I was kind of doing the same thing, thanks to my cousin Ian. And then I realized, oh, Mr. Gibson, who lived around the corner, like one door away, he's got a guitar, so I went around to see him because I knew it's meant to have six strings, not five strings.

And then I asked him, you know, if he could teach me something. Now Mr. Gibson had learned guitar because he was, He left with about, I don't know, how many men from Sunderland, you know, in the war, and they got on this ship, and they arrived at Singapore, and immediately got captured by the Japanese, and put into a Japanese prisoner war camp, and I think only out of a thousand men, 20 came back or something, and they had to build a Burmese railway,

and they were tortured and starved, you know, they all came back about five stone or something like that. And what he did was to survive, he made a kind of homemade guitar out of bits of floorboard and wood and bits of wire and so on the night time he kind of tried to sing songs to keep the guy's morale up

you know Oh how amazing So yeah so it worked both ways Because it helped him and then So I didn't realize when he was teaching me that He had it to a kind of banjured tuning And you know

Different tunings anyway and he was the sweetest guy ever and he only passed away a few years ago at 103 or something and even when he was 100 he would drive to an ambulance to pick up all the people who couldn't get to the hospital

oh what a good man yeah it was an amazing guy and then his son David and my brother they were the same age so they would play and make music but Mr Gibson he sort of like

was showing me not just these nose, but strumming, you know, like. You know, give me little rhythms, you know, whatever it was. So that's how slowly over like nine months I started to work out what was going on. And then my brother came back from college with his mate called Gam, John Graham, and he picked up the guitar, he went, what the hell is this?

It's all tuned wrong, and he tuned it all, and I went oh shit I had to learn the whole thing again but anyway yeah so I was just as obsessed with the guitar as I was with football it just switched from that to that I'm sorry that you broke your leg in three places but I'm not sorry at all because look what's happened

yeah and I still get to see Sondland play even though I you know was at the Arsenal match on Saturday at the Emirates Stadium here in London and you know but Sunland are doing it great I mean but if your leg

hadn't have been broken in three places you I mean I'm somebody who believes that actually there would have been a way there would have been another way because obviously music is such a big massive part of your life that's what you it's what you've done

since you were so young that there would have been a way that it had found you one way or another yeah well I think it's an interesting thing when I get asked about songwry I don't really sit down at a piano or a guitar and try and write a song.

I just am enjoying myself playing it or maybe some grey, moody day or something. And it just comes in one go. So my engineer, you know, I've had a new one for about four years. He always got a shock because I'd say, you better record it straight away because I immediately forget what I've done. But usually, 80% of the words are immediately there in one go. I don't write them down. I just sing them out loud

and play the chords and it all fits together. Has it always been like that? Yeah, I mean, I've never... I mean, when Annie and I wrote together, it was the same, you know, it would like... We would never allow anybody else in the room

and then we'd come back 15 minutes later from the other room and go, right, ready, and they go, what are we doing? I said, well, we'd just written this song and that's how we made albums in like writing them, recording, now would produce them and mix them, all finished in three weeks. So like when the record label, one time...

That's incredible. This lovely guy John Preston, who was head of chairman of the British Phonographic Industry, but he was also became head of the record label. He came to meet us in the studio and he said, well, when do you think we're going to get a new album? And I said, well, May the first. He said, oh, great, can I hear the demo? So we haven't written them yet.

He said, how do you know what's made a first? I said, it will be. So it's in you. I know that sounds such a sort of ridiculous... I think it's in Lowe. I think it's in some divine... But it comes through you and comes straight out of it. But you've got to allow it to.

And that's like anything. Do you think we all have something like that in us? Uh-huh. And how come some people feel... Is it because they don't allow it to come in? Well, I don't think... I think it's because they don't allow it on purpose. I think what's happened is since they were a child,

they've been put into a system. And, you know, from five years old, they start to sort of have to follow these rules, and then they have to do tests and this and that. It's that ability to still have a playful mind. Because really, it's just about playing. But playing isn't really playing. When children play, they are like creating, you know.

You can give a kid like a cardboard box and say, Can you make a hotel out of that? Yeah, sure. You know? And when you take that away and like start putting parameters around the thought process, like, and, you know, oh, no, you need to get this and that. And, you know, then... No, I agree. I think all of that is suppressed, which I find very sad.

But you just mentioned something that I feel very passionate about is that as people get older, they lose their imagination to be able to make a hotel out of a box or whatever it is. Yeah. that thing, whatever you want to call it, the divine, you use the word divine, but that thing, you haven't let all of that, you haven't stopped it, you haven't blocked it. No. As an adult, you've just kept it flowing, which is such an amazingly open thing to do. Well, I mean, I can't stop it. But that's wonderful.

It's not like I'm... Lots of people do stop it, though. Mm-hmm. Well, again, going back to the reason, well, if we talk about anything to do with relationships or this sort of indoctrinated thing that's fed into people, like, you know, for instance, a lot of discussions at the moment about the most awful things that are happening, right? And, you know, I've always sort of lived with very strong women, you know, whether it's Annie or married Chavon, and my wife now is a brilliant conceptual photographer. And I've always seen women as equals, even though you thought I was asking how they'd get a seventh of sugar, but... She knows the comedic part of it

I know, so did we all, we loved it So I think, you know, women were repressed a lot more Into not thinking they could sort of just get on And be, you know, an astronaut or this or that Whatever and some just broke through and managed to do it Like yourself, all the people I've met along the way That have managed to break through it Like in this little, we'll talk about this rare company in the minute

But I was taking all these photographs of Bjork and all it was happening like all we were doing is playing like kids you know in my flat so you know it's like not see this is a line on the floor and I just took the photos

I put some silver paper on the floor put a fluorescent tube upside down and then she was pretending she's floating in space you know what is this that you're showing me I'm intrigued tell me more about what this is it's a little booklet about that's one

This looks like flowers, but I was pinning things against. May I just have a look? This is all in the same day, yeah. So tell me what is rare? Well, Rare is a company I've co-founded with Dom, who you know, and Rich Britain. And the website's called This Is Rare.com. And it's creating a new kind of company that puts like, exactly what we're talking about, puts creatives and imagination and all that stuff first.

and then builds a sort of vehicle around it, as opposed to having a ginormous vehicle, and then looking for stuff. You know, oh, that's a TikTok style. We'll sign them quick. And this is more like unique original concepts and bring them to life that people can then go and be together and see and witness and be part of, yeah.

I find it very sad that people feel that they feel slightly squashed and all of that. Isn't allowed to come out? And we all need that. Like we need music. We really need music. It saves our soul. Everybody's being controlled,

especially the anxious generation, you know, that have been constantly fed stuff through algorithms on the phone. So I was talking earlier about I heard that a lot of teenagers and stay in the house a lot more. Well, loneliness is on the increase because of it.

Yeah, and, The statistic is they actually stay inside on phones or computers more than when people are in prison that are allowed to out during the day. So prisoners are actually outside more or going and socialising when they have their lunch or their dinner or walking in the... Yeah, so kids are just, I'd rather be inside. That's heartbreaking. I mean, I'm working on my radio show and on TV shows that I do. away from all of that as we're working on tackling loneliness. And actually, this sounds like something that does just... Well, it's all, yeah, entities that bring people together.

There's one called Sonic Sphere. I don't know if there's a picture of it in there. I saw that on your Instagram. Yeah, yeah. It looks incredible. Yeah, so... I wanted to ask you, what is it? Well...

I want to be in that sphere. Well, there's a sort of movement of people and... I think it might have started in Japan a while about it. A lot of young people got fed up with just going to bars, getting drunk or whatever. So they actually go to a place and there's a great stereo like here. And people sit around and they put on a vinyl album and they listen to it. Well, Sonic's like that on steroids. It's a ginormous sphere.

I mean, probably four times the size of this whole place. And then you can have lots of people lying on the back or around. it and it's got about 300 and odd speakers and it's divided the sound up of whatever music was put into it and it's

given you a total new experience of listening. So it embodies it sort of encompasses you completely. Yeah you're just like people go away go oh my God like you know Oh how wonderful. Because you see everything seems to be like so transient and on the move and like

so people you know listen to a bit of a music music, then flip it to something else. Where are these spheres? Well, they will be wherever the next place. It can be multiple. Oh, it can be move around? Yeah, it can be multiple ones and it can move around. So you immerse yourselves in the experience? Absolutely, yeah. So you're actually listening. We don't do that very much. No, not very much now. And... Is it going to be your music as well, though? Will there be your music in there as well? But it could be, yeah. Please. You know, let's just be honest. You know, you... There's quite a question. a catalogue of incredible.

Well, you know, it's the 60th anniversary of the Beatles album Revolver, you know, in something like sometime this year in summer, I think, which is when they first sort of started playing with psychedelic and all that stuff. So it's amazing how these records stand the test of time. And also, it's the 60th anniversary of the Beach Boys, Pet Sounds. That's, do you know, I find that so extraordinary you're saying about how, those, okay, I'll slightly going back on myself, but what makes a song stay with us forever?

Obviously, you know, the Beatles and we'll talk about your stuff though, as well, if we may. But you mentioned the Beatles and the Beach Boys, and to some extent, like people say that about Abba and, and, but also so many of the things that you've brought us musically, they stay with us and every generation knows them. And even the first few notes, you know them. that's so special for all of us who've grown up with it and hear it and the new generations who hear it

yeah well we say at our company right it all starts with a feeling so whatever we get involved with and there's quite a few things I can tell you about it's the feeling of it and we don't want to do anything that brings in any sort of negative companies or whatever you know it's but the feeling so talking about the first for your notes. So things have become a little bit sort of homogenised. Yes, I agree. And back the birth of like sort of pop music, you know, coming out of the 40s into the 50s, you know, and Frank Snartre and the Nelson Riddle strings and all this stuff and then going into the 60s and experimental music. And into the 70s, I mean, 1973, you've got David Bowie releasing Honky Dory,

Neil Young releasing Harvest, Lou Reed releasing Transformer, you know, with Walk on the Wild Side, and not long after that, you've got, oh, the clash and the sex pistols and, you know, polystyrene and x-ray specs, and you've got all, and then you tumble into the 80s,

and you've got, you know, late 70s, 80s, you've got New Order Blue Monday, and I think there are things from all sorts of decades that are mind-blowing, but why those particular things is the question you're asking. Why do they stay with us and why did every generation

know them? It's the feeling, isn't it? I mean, you know, when Nirvana started, the feeling was just so overwhelming, right, of the music coming at you and, you know, and so... Well, sort of how you felt when you heard that first vinyl. Exactly. So, you know, when I first heard Blue Monday by New Order, I was like, whoa. But on the other hand, when I first heard cameo in a club,

you know, or sexual healing by Marvin Gay. But also when I first heard what's going on by Marvin Gay, of Van Morrison Astral Weeks. So, you know, off that record, there's a feeling coming. Now, I must admit that when I was, that I've had a very strange life see, because when my mum left my dad, I went a bit sort of like lost. But I had the guitar, right?

And I hitchhiked to London a few times. And weirdly enough, the hotel I'm staying in at the moment in Soho I was thinking about this the other day that years before when I was like 17 or something I slept in a car park there with just like a blanket and now I'm sleeping in the bed

upstairs and you know it's like I believe things happen for a reason do you believe that? Yeah I it's just like really strange how things turn out but you see it starts with a feeling

and somebody else gets that feeling So we got signed when I was 19, I got signed to Chris Blackwell's Island music as a songwriter and to Elton John's Rock at Records as the first or the second band he ever signed or whatever. And when that feeling goes wrong and say the band I was in broke up, everybody can kind of tell, you know, but when the band are all together and getting on,

they can feel that as well, you know. But there's amazing music being my music. made now it's just that it's very hard for people to hear it because there's so much Yeah there's that yes There's too much for people It's too accessible

Yeah and it's all controlled you see Because you know Spotify and all the DSPs And things like that so Spotify's co-owned shares of it are owned by record labels who push you know say well you've got to do this and you've got to do that And a lot of kids

are sold all this shit you know they've got a record coming out, oh yeah, but you can use this algorithm and pay us this money and we'll push it. And it's like, forget it. I say, just learn how to play your music or whatever and go and play somewhere around about here. Yeah, there's a wonderful busker who was playing by Kings Cross that I had passenger on last week. And passenger stopped to talk to him and he said, this is how I started. I was a busker in Brighton, in New Busk in Finchby Park. I would stand there singing and playing songs

I looked about 12 when I was 16 you know no but I think if anybody's listened to this who is a young person starting a band or on their own forget about all of this stuff you know

with social media and everything and just go to the nearest local place you can I used to play outside a clothes shop in Sunderland it was the only clothes shop that sold you know jeans and things like that called West One and it was like and I asked them if I could play outside the shop

and the owner Dave Donicking he said all right son okay so I had a little chair and I would just sing Bob Dylan songs outside the shop and I was like in fact I just went back to Sondland last year and did two concerts where I just sang the same Bob Dylan songs that I sang outside the shop oh that's give me goosebumps and it was great fun and so I mean... It's great advice for somebody that's listening and thinking,

this is what I want to do, but you're right, it seems to be about the algorithms and getting it out there on TikTok or something, that when I heard that young man last week playing outside Kings Cross, I stopped, I watched him and everything. He's actually coming on my radio show because I liked him that much. But I just, it's just getting out there.

He said it was about he just wants to play. And it is about that. But can we go to the music that we all grew up with and that we all, that's still very much in our lives, it's still, you know, on the radio shows, we still play your stuff all the time. And newer stuff, but also eurythmix and all of that. Did you know that the success and that all these years later people

would still be singing the songs and everybody would know every word? Did you know sometimes? Did you sort of put that, that song was done? You and Annie did the song and then you just knew that it was going to be one that lasted forever? No. I didn't even know I'd be alive. I mean, you know... I'm very pleased you are.

Thank you. You know, Annie and I, when we met, you know, we lived together in a squat. You had to climb over sort of rubble to get in and like slept in the corner on a mattress. And we had eight pound a week between us. So we had to wait outside the back of a vegetable shop and they would give us some stuff and all that, right. And actually, you know, it was pretty rough. And I was, like, struggling, you know, because of everything that had happened to me.

And I remember when Annie one time, like, started shouting. And there was this Hell's Angel trying to put... He had a flick now. We were asleep in bed, but he'd got into the squat. And he had, like, some, you know, infatements or something. He was trying to put it up my nose while I was. While I was asleep.

And then Annie sort of fought him off. So it's like... You go through all of this stuff and you still have this sort of like feeling. You know, so we played in another band. We didn't write any of the songs in that band. We were living together the whole period. And when that band broke up, we decided to live separately. Well, she only moved upstairs.

But like, by that time we had like a little sort of bed sit type flat. And then So we didn't write any songs During the whole period When we were in the other band We didn't write them separately or together Just read didn't write songs And obviously

It can use all sorts of stuff When that feeling happens So you know For instance You know we didn't write any songs together then we broke up and wrote 120 songs about breaking up so yeah I mean you know even the notes we should have my pick but I don't know where I put it but um you see okay so different notes evoke different feelings so if I was to play a normal A minor this is right

it's a certain feeling and you can play it here certain feeling but when I played the opening note to, here comes the rain again, I added, and I added a note called a B-natural. So it's like... So it kind of sounds kind of sad, but expectant. Do you know what I mean? Totally, because it happened then when you played it. Yeah, it's...

Actually, I don't know if Hannah's got a pig out there, but I don't know if she can hear us. I'll get one. Don, can we see if there's a pick? See that. So, yeah, so, you know, I could... I'd love you to play some more... Well, I could do loads of examples about how that note.

But you keep talking about what's so incredible is you keep talking about feeling. And you were talking about when you were young and you've heard that, the first vinyl. And then you put on the radio and that feeling. Yeah. And then talking about rare and... the feeling. And then you're talking about those notes. And when you break it down like that, the feeling.

And it is, music is, and I was saying that to Nicole and Natalie as well, that music evokes something in us. And when we let it give us that feeling, when we let it in, what it does to us emotionally is something so powerful. Huge, yeah. And we all, you know,

everybody goes around that. We're so far. now. Oh, I've got to grab this. I've got to do this. We have the radio on or we have Spotify or whatever you listen to. But music is there sometimes in the background, in a shop or something. But I do want those moments of just, I've got to listen to this song. This morning I was playing some Shirley Ellis. I won it. I feel that, that thought, I just suddenly wanted to play it. Yeah. And I just stood in the bathroom. Yeah. And I just listened to it. And I thought, oh, it's just nice. Just three minutes. standing, listening.

And what you just did with that note was exactly the same thing. And we all need to listen more, don't we? Yeah, I mean, not just in music, in conversation. But that's what I mean, across the board. Yeah, because it's all been sped up on purpose by ginormous corporations to sell more stuff. So you've got to hurry up and get that and do that, finish that,

and have this, and have this with it and this on top of it. and so people are running around, you know, like a mouse on a wheel, trying to keep up with all this stuff. But, you know, just talking about notes, sorry, this makes a clicking noise, my... Do you mind if I take my jacket off? No, I don't mind if you take your jacket off. Of course I don't mind.

How long does this go on for? Well, we'll just another few minutes. No, I'm not in a hurry. I just mean I don't want to wander off whatever topic you want to talk about. No, no, no, no. This is exactly what we... Oh, there we go. Ollie's coming in with a pick.

Is it coming in? Yes. Did you like the smash on the mic then? I can say, don't forget to tell Gabby about zombie Broadway. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Apparently you've got the picks. That's not the exact feeling. I know, I had it when I walked in, but...

Should we try and find it? Where is it? Is it in the case? It's a little purple thing. Is it purple? Is it in the case? No. I don't think so. Hang on.

notes. You found it. You know that tiny pocket on jeans? Yes, but I never used it. You obviously use that. Yeah. I use it for yours to put me picky in. There we go.

But, you know, so I was great friends actually with George Harrison and, you know, he... Everyone said he was the most wonderful, wonderful man. Lovely guy and spent many, many, well, so many stories about it. But he knew how to, just the sound of his voice mixed with a chord and the feeling. But if I was to play like this, you know what I mean? You immediately feel, oh, this feels like a great new morning or something.

Yes. And then he sings about that, you know. But the opening of the chord, you see, it's the chord. of D unlike the right, which is the chord of here comes the rain again. Yes. Now, in the space of three minutes of a song, you can take people on a huge journey, not because you're sort of manipulating their emotions, but because that's what you were doing when you were writing it.

So, you know, you're doing that, but when you go to... Which is like, taught to me like lovers do, right? Yeah. And then back to, oh, oh, but it's all gone wonky again, you know. And I love that fact that even just with the six strings, skeletal keys, you know, it's just, I could just go, I don't even need a drum, you know. So, I mean, I can set on my own for hours and just be noodling about. And believe me, if more kids were allowed to have instruments,

At school and noodle about, it's very therapeutic. It really is. You know, to be able to sit, whether it's a piano or a ukulele or a guitar or whatever you feel like. I totally agree. Why do you take a sip for your coffee? I trained singer but also played the piano, but I couldn't read any music. And I went into my grade one exam and they said, yeah, it's great. Now could you do some sight reading?

I went, no, I can't read music. But could you just play it for me and I'll repeat it? And the examiner said, no, I said, please just do it. So they did it, and I copied them. And he said, I can't pass you. I said, isn't that what music should be? And he just, he didn't have an answer. And I was the shyest girl, so me saying that to him, he was a bit shocked.

Well, that brings us to connecting seemingly disconnected dots. So whether people like jazz music are not, you know, but you can't be having a jam session, blues or jazz or anything, and have to stop it to say, I'm going to play it. E minor now. You know, everybody just moves like a shoal of fish. And what's happening at the moment, on purpose, in many countries, they're trying to sort of divide everybody up, right? And you see it happening in America big time. It's like, and it's this divisiveness that has happened in other periods of time. And you can kind of see, you know, the exact, they're setting

the stage to do this so they can control even more. Now, if you think about a shoal of fish, right, and something comes along and just makes them all split up, they kind of get lost in a way, because all of a sudden they were all together and now they're all over the place and they're arguing with their neighbour and whatever, you know. Music, as you said earlier, is a very important thing because there's a book called The Secret Teaching of the Secret Teaching of All Ages by Manly P. Hall, which a lot of the books that were explaining about things, about the universe, the church didn't like, so they would get banished and they would actually not allow it. So this guy spent, you know, most of his life finding where they all were and getting them remade and put in this giant book. And in it, it explains just about everything, but it's written by Archimedes and Pythagoras and all these people who had worked it out years ago that, you know, everything was connected and now we have all the abilities to

literally see, you know, the galaxy and the solar system and all that stuff. And yet we're more disconnected than ever. But music brings us together. Music brings us together. But if a lot of the corporations had it their way, unless they could make an amazing amount of money out of it, they were just like, you know, you see, a lot of artists, how are they meant to get the numbers on social media, you know, young artists, to get the attention of any record label or publisher or whatever. But I'm saying, why bother? You know, why bother?

Go like the guy on the street you like, the bus car, or go to the local bar or outside of a clothes shop or whatever. And just do it. I mean, Annie and I played sweet dreams to about three people on New Year's Eve. I love that song. We had to drive 200 miles to do it. And there was a snowstorm on the way back. But we did it, you know, and like we believed in it.

That song, that song, I absolutely love that song. It just the minute, just the first note I hear, you can play now. Boom. That first, that first thing. Well, that first thing woke Annie up. She was lying on the floor and she was like depressed and like, oh, you know, we were broke and everything. and like, oh, she was feeling like going to give up and go back to Scotland. And I was trying to make this thing work.

But me and my friend Adam had slept on the floor of the guy who was building a prototype, like a drum machine, but it was a different kind of drum machine. It was very unusual how you had to operate it. And so I tuned this sort of drum all the way down, this tom-tom till it was almost, you could hardly tell if it was a drum. it was just a feeling. And then... Back to the feeling.

And I put it on top of the bass drum and that's the first note you hear like, doom. And then, do, do, do... And I was playing with this synthesizer. And Annalie saw left to her feet. Immediately came out of a depression. Oh, my word.

And it was like, what the hell is that? And then we both started playing different keyboards and she was playing, and I'm going to do it, and it all just fitted together. And literally in like three... tracks of a, you know, well we only had seven tracks, but on three of them, we just kept listening to it and playing a pack on, Jesus, what have we done? You know, like, it's just that riff going

round and round and round and round. And if they, you know, you're at a festival or an EDM festival or wherever, I know that DJs saved that for a certain point in the set and they just go, doon, did it, and everybody goes bananas. Oh, just, it's, what's so extraordinary is there was some songs that you just have to say the title, you say the title and instantly in my head, I'm singing it. Just, that's it. While you're talking, I am listening to you, but I'm singing the song. It's there.

There are very few songs that do that. But there's, oh gosh, it's so much. That's it. It's the feeling. It is the feeling in me of that song. Yeah. Well, you know, Dom just put his head in, so don't forget to say about this. Yeah, yes, what was he telling you?

So, tell us about. Well, all these different feelings. So one of the things I've been creating is it's a new genre for kids, you know, five-year-old or so ten or whatever, of storytelling. So I've written ten little books like allegorical tales. And it's all about like, it's called Floating Upstream. So it's all about not going in the direction that everybody is telling you to go in.

Oh, I love that. And one of the stories is called, you know, the hedgehog who wanted a hug, you know. What I do is I write these songs and stories, and then it will become a little kind of mini, if you want to use the word, immersive theatrical thing for kids to go to. And then they'll be a narrator and then the hedgehog will come out, you know, and his thing and the songs will happen. Where is this? How can people see this? No, this is something I've created.

What a lovely, lovely idea. And rare, you see, as a team, because we have everybody in the team to do it, and now looking at spaces and theaters. But what's such a lovely thing is that, you know, as a child who was different from everybody else, because I was so unbelievably shy, but knew I wanted to be a TV presenter, if somebody had said to me, you know what, you can float upstream, it's not about going the way that everybody wants.

That, I totally, I love that. In, you know, Finley the Fish, he keeps going, trying to swim upstream and all the other fish have gone, hey, mate, you meant to be going this way. And he's like struggling to go the other way. And they all like, oh, give up Finley's nuts, you know. Anyway, he finds this rock pool that none of the other fish have seen. And in it he sees all these amazing looking things and everything.

So it's like, you know, there's magic everywhere. Yeah. And then the other scary side of it, like if you notice when you were growing up, you know, you were given these kids fairies. or whatever, Grims, fairy tales or the Red Riding Hood. Scary stories. Yeah, they were. But that one is about not trusting everything as a kid.

And it wasn't your grandma in the bed, it was a fox or a wolf. The wolf, right? So I had this other one that's a really crazy one. I can't give too much a way about it, but you will feel as if you're trapped in the theatre with, and there's like a sort of invasion outside the theatre so it's a scary thing right but it's like but you're all together as a group in it

but it's all right in the end yeah they sort of crawl out through the escape room kind of yeah I was talking to Bjorn because we always working on stuff to try and help artists to understand how to get paid

so there's this great thing that we have called goclip.org, which explains every single way you can get paid as an artist, right? You do so much, don't you, Dave? Looking after artists, you're doing immersive stuff, you're writing music, I know you've directed in the past,

you hopefully will still do that, and you have all these ideas that are coming out of your head. I'm going to go back to what I said at the beginning, because we've got to end now, but... You did a good segue into, like, the head. But what happened to you when you thought you were going to be a professional footballer, I believe was supposed to happen even though at the time you went through a horrific time, obviously,

the way you talk about it, and I can see it for your face when you talk about it. But what's grown out of that is so huge and is helping a lot of people that I just want to say thank you. Well, why don't you ask me what brings me joy? I'm going to. I'm actually going to. I was going to say. So apart from the guitar, which is on your lap. Well, my children as well, obviously.

Yeah, but that goes without saying. Obviously, children and partners. Well, I brought it in this box. Okay, so what is in this box? So this brings you joy. Something in this box brings you joy. Yeah. Shall I take the lid off?

Yeah. Okay. I feel it might be a hat. Yes. Or it is? It's another hat, just like this hat. It's a dark grey hat and that's a beige hat. Now, the reason why.

this gives me joy. May I? Yes. The place where I get my hats made, they made Charlie Chaplin's hats and... Is it a Locken? Co. Yeah. Since 1676. Winston Churchill's hats, like, all these hats. And when you go there, they put like really old, I must be about a 200-year-old thing on your head. That measures all the tiny little bumps in your head or whatever. Oh, my word, really? And then on the wall, you can see everybody that's been there from Frank Sinatra to whoever have had their hats made there and they keep it.

And then I can call up like if my straw hat is like all messed up because I went in the sea with it. Do you mind if I put it on? Yeah, go on. Yeah, go on. Okay. Yeah, carry on.

Yeah, I've got a very big head. Yeah, that looks good. I actually suit you. So yeah, so it's a small, I mean, it's a hat, right? Get a head to a hat. But it makes you happy. Yeah. brings you joy.

It does. And, okay, I'll quickly run through my day, then we can stop. I get up in the morning, I have coconut water, sliced apple and green tea. Then I do something like wherever I am, you know, I'll walk somewhere or swim in the sea if I'm in that kind of place. Then I come back to the living or the bedroom or wherever, answer lots of things, meditate. then I have brunch or breakfast. People always come back because they're having lunch.

I say I don't eat lunch. So I have like breakfast at like noon. And then I go into this space I've created. It's like a compound that has a recording studio and a thinking room and all that. And between about 1.30 and 5.30, that's the only time I work, right, on creative things. and at 745 I have a martini and then dinner

and I ever have one martini but I've been doing that for years and years and years and years I actually have my own vodka company and the hat is on the bottle but everything in moderation but it's all things that I really love

and then when I go into that space to work I am completely focused on that stuff I mean I've probably got all the things they talk about like if I'm going to get cars made it'll say David A. Stewart, ADHD OCD whatever you know what I mean instead of like

Those are your superpowers Dave thank you The last time we met was Over 30 years ago on the Big Breakfast And I cannot tell you what an absolute honour it has been To chat to you again That wasn't that a really bonkers time when I had Shanade,

Kylie, Minogue, and Natalie and Brulia wearing wigs and they came on as my back of all this. Might have been. It was a very wonderful, glorious time. And thank you for bringing in your hats because they know they bring you joy, but thank you for all of the joy that you spread.

Well, thanks you so, thank you so much. And now you're going to sing an improvised I'm going to sing. Yeah, while I play, you're going to sing the first things that come in your head. It doesn't mind if it's in tune, out of tune, just seeing the first things that come in your head, right? Okay. Right, here we go. Any words? So just words? Yeah, words. It can be random words. Don't have to rhyme. Ready? Okay. And I'll be happy. That's all! Very good. Oh, that's how I feel in the mornings. Yeah. First thing I do is pop a smile on my face. And I lit and your music is in my head and it always is. Thank you. I really mean it, Dave.

for so many reasons, thank you. Thank you for the music. Thank you for the kindness. Thank you for being here today. And thank you for what you're doing to help people with their imaginations. And I cannot wait to come and sit in that sphere. What's it called again?

The sonic sphere. The sonic sphere. I'm looking forward to that. Dave, thank you so much. All right, thank you.