Tony Mantor's : Almost Live..... Nashville - Hue and Cry: The Evolution of Brothers in Harmony

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Pat Kane of Hue and Cry on New Single “Stronger,” Post-Post-Punk Authenticity, and Keeping Imperfection in the Music Host Tony Mantor introduces his podcast Almost Live Nashville and welcomes Pat Kane of Hue and Cry, the late-1980s duo known for blending pop, jazz, and sophisticated songwriting, including the hit “Labor of Love” from Seduced and Abandoned. Kane discusses promoting the new single “Stronger” and an upcoming album (out March 29), describing it as an optimistic electronic departure that reconnects with the band’s earlier electric phase while keeping their “post post-punk” core. He cites influences including The Human League, jazz, big bands, and classic soul, and reflects on unexpected success, the political-romantic metaphor and production of “Labor of Love,” and the intensity and intuition of writing with his brother Greg. Kane shares lessons about empathy in the music business, moments of renewed visibility via Grand Theft Auto and TV, resisting commercial pressure, valuing authenticity amid AI, embracing machine quirks in recording, and where to find the band online. 01:51 New Single and Album 02:28 Post Post Punk Vision 03:21 Influences and Sound 04:21 Breakout Success Stories 05:41 Why Labor of Love 06:38 Brothers in the Band 07:27 Hard Lessons in Music 08:21 Pop Culture Comeback 10:53 Staying Authentic 12:31 Start With Stronger 13:43 Fighting for Art 15:13 What Keeps Fans Hooked 16:22 Songs That Heal 18:09 AI and Real Performance 20:20 Machines and Happy Accidents 23:34 Advice for Creators 24:28 Stadiums vs Intimate Gigs 25:25 Where to Find Hue and Cry 26:25 Final Thanks INTRO/OUTRO: T.Wild Mantor Music BMI Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

My career in the entertainment industry has enabled me to work with a diverse range of talent. Through my years of experience, I've recognized two essential aspects. Industry professionals, whether famous stars, or behind-the-scenes staff, have fascinating stories to tell. Secondly, audiences are eager to listen to these stories, which offer a glimpse into their lives and the evolution of their life stories. This podcast aims to share these narratives, providing information on how they evolved into their chosen career. We will delve into their journey to stardom, discuss their struggles and successes, and hear from people who help them achieve their goals. Get ready for intriguing behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the fascinating world of entertainment.

Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville. If you haven't already, take a quick second to tap the follow button. It really helps the show reach more people. who love music and entertainment. Thanks for being here. Joining us today is Pat Kane. He and his brother Greg formed Hugh and Cry, which emerged in the late 1980s with a sound that blended pop, jazz, and sophisticated songwriting. They first captured international attention with their debut album seduced and abandoned, which produced the unforgettable hit, Labor of Love. Their music has always stood apart, thoughtful, melodic, and emotionally rich. He has a great story, so before we dive into

our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted show right after a word from our sponsors. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's my pleasure. I understand you're about to release a new single. Can you give our listeners a little update on the single and a little inside information on what they can expect? Well, we're promoting our new hearing cry single stronger and there's an album out on March of 29th and I'm having a great time chatting with people about it. It's a bit a departure for us, so people are picking up on that, moving into kind of, or not really moving into Electronica, but recovering an electric phase of our past, which we started out with, and which we're kind of picking up again. I think it's great you're staying true to your past.

With that said, how have you seen yourself evolve from your humble beginnings to where you are today with your new album? Well, it's interesting. I don't think we've evolved that much at the core because we describe ourselves as post-punks. You know, so punk is three chords in the truth. Post-punk is all the chords and all the truths and post-post-punk is how do we make a hit record out of all that authenticity and possibility. So that's the kind of principle that's kept us going for the last

40-odd years. And so we came back to doing this new record called Everybody and we thought how do we, not so much how do we revive our sound, but how do we recover a certain optimistic, futuristic vision, which turns out to be exactly what people need in these

slightly grim and contestive times. So we have happened to have made an optimistic electronic record, which we're very pleased about. It's always good when you're happy with your completed project. So tell us, who was some of your early influences? Well, it was interesting because of the post-punk thing, it was a lot of, you know, quite experimental synthesizer bands

that then became pop bands. Preeminent in that was a human league. So that's been a big inspiration in the new record. But we also come from a very jazzy background. Our father was a great lover of big bands and Belcanto singers. So we've mixed that in with an appreciation for the classic soul, Stevie Wonder, Temptations, Sly Stone. But even something that's Slice Stone, if you listen to It's a family affair

or you listen to there's a riot going on, is using drum machines at the very core, Stevie Wonder, famously using Mokes and synthesizers and Kurzweil keyboards to kind of make his great records. So there's been this kind of debate between the organic and the mechanical for a long time in pop music and how do you get? passion through technology. And so we're just picking up on that and taking it forward with this new record.

Yeah, I think that's awesome. When you released your first album and it turned out that it was a huge breakout album for you, did you sense that this album was going to connect so widely and expand all over the world? And then did that ultimate success take you by surprise? I think when you try to make the quirkyest, most idiosyncratic record, can and that pleases you rather than necessarily pleases anyone else, then when other people come to appreciate it, it's a delight. I mean, I'm famous within Hugh and Cry because a big hit, top 10 hit, Labor of Love, I didn't want it to be out because I thought the bass drum was all

the place. No one could dance to it. It was far too radical, a lyric, far too political. And of course, you got to number six and sold hundreds of thousands of records. So I've never been allowed anywhere near the decision-making process to choose a single or a song. track ever again because clearly I'll get it wrong. But we have always, we've just been inspired by idiosyncrats, you know, people who just have a unique vision and we've always tried to follow that. But we've also had a belief that it could be popular music as well, that you, to follow your nose. Deeply enough is to connect with something universal and to connect with people's tastes. If you're absolutely individualistic in your taste, you might get to somewhere that appeals to other

people's tastes in a universal way. So, yeah. Now, you just brought up your song, Labor. of love, which was a huge hit for you. What do you think made that song so timeless? I think it's got a big metaphor at the heart of it, and I think it took it on a journey. So the idea of a labor of love is a great concept. Yeah. You know, the idea that love is itself a labor is quite challenging. But I decided to stick the old political language onto it, which, so the full chorus has withdrawn my labor of love. So it's occupying two different worlds, the world of romance in the world of politics, and it's trying to kind of talk about the power battles within each one of

them. And I think also the production is incredible. We worked with guys. It was a guy, Harvey Goldberg, who had worked with the Rolling Stones and Steve You Wonder as an engineer, and he really made it kick through. It punches through the radio whenever it plays, whether it's 1987 or 2027, it will still punch through to people. Yeah, yeah, that makes total sense. Now, as brothers, how has that relationship affected your creative process? Has it made it easier or sometimes more intense? Certainly, intensity is the default. And then when it's easier when we're telepathic with each other or near telepathic, and it means that when you're in the writing situation or in the performing situation, you very quickly agree on something that's good and you very quickly agree on something

that's bad. So there's an awful lot of intuition there. And it's, but it's best with writing. I mean, it means that when something's really working, we instantly know it, and then we focus on that. And that, we keep chasing that feeling of intuition between us. It's helped us be writing songs for four. The process is obviously good because it's been helping us writing songs for 40 years. That's a great test of time for sure. Now, as younger artists always do, they have a creative process to learn. Looking back, what lessons did you learn while you was evolving with your career?

Oh, bruised and battered lessons, one of which would be. choose your moment to be arrogant and choose your moment not to be arrogant. There's an awful lot of people who are in the music business for troubled reasons, but nevertheless the music business runs on a kind of relationships and empathy. So as the years have gone past, I've tried to sort of stand in someone else's shoes a bit more because I think the thing about rock and roll is that it's a kind of an institution for the broken and the battered,

and they often come into rock and roll because nobody else will have them. So I've tried to remember that more and more as the years go by. When someone's evidently having a hard time or giving you a hard time, they're in rock and roll for being healed by the music. Well, it would be my number one lesson, forget and forgive. Yeah, those are great words to live by for sure. When you reflect back, was there a moment when it really hit you that Hugh and Cry had become part of the industry?

And people were starting to take notice. Yeah, there was a funny moment. we started to get phone calls at some time in the mid-80s sorry the mid-20s and I thought why am I getting all these calls about Labor of Love and our track had appeared

on the radio station of Grand Theft Auto the video game at that time it was like the biggest selling video game in the world I think it still is and people started to say I've just been listening to you as I'm driving around chasing gangsters in Grand Theft Auto

and I thought okay that's us at the heart of popular culture We also did a show in mid-2000s called a TV show, Saturday Night TV show called Hit Me Baby One More Time, which was a kind of a show which was about acts coming back onto the scene, having been away for a while. And we decided to do it just for a laugh, but it really restarted our career. And it was nice to bring your quirky numbers to the heart of the mainstream. So that was another great experience. Now, because your brothers, this isn't just a musical collaboration.

It's family. When you listen to some of your songs, those songs can be when you very first started or the ones you just recorded. Do you listen to them and feel like they're chapters of your lives together? Yeah, very much so. And it's interesting. What's delightful about me and my brother is that we began in a very polarized way. I mean, we were those broken souls that come into the music business and try and find a way to express themselves. But it's painful.

And we were painful with each other. And over the years we have sort of gravitated into this beautiful space where we both kind of generally agree with each other and take joy in that. So I would have said that one of the big early hits was a song called Violently. And that was very much about the kind of fractious relationships in my life, including with my brother. But we now are both on the same page, say,

when it comes to approach to peace over war and public affairs, and we turn the same song violently into a peace anthem. And we're both completely on the same page when we're doing that. So it's nice for a brother to have been, you know, an enemy at one point in your life and a comrade at the other. And to do that by coalescing around these songs and uniting around these songs that we have both written. And certainly the songs in the early days are triumphs over our tensions. And the triumph just gets better as the years go by, I can tell you. That's just great to hear.

There's a lot of artists out there that over the years they do everything they can do to stay relevant. sometimes you will see that they are just merely following the path of what others are doing trying to stay competitive. It seems like over the years you haven't done that. You have simply followed your own instincts. So when you look at that, did you find that staying true to what your sound was, did you feel that was risky or just merely a path you had to take? It's because we're from the punky, you know, the idea that you have. a right to authenticity and you have a right to experiment was just the basis of how we came

into the music business and that sort of persisted all the way through to the present. We owe a lot to my dad and his eclecticism as a musical shaper and former of our taste. And I owe a lot to magazines like the NME, which I don't know if you know about the NME, but it was a famous music magazine. Yeah. It wasn't just a music magazine. It was a curator of musical possibilities. They used to have cassettes on the front of the NME, which would be the most extraordinary collections of music, and they completely shaped the way I wanted to, where I valued pop and rock and soul and jazz.

Virtuosity and chops, musical chops, has always been a big thing for us. So that's been what the jazz legacy has kept us alive to. When someone's playing with soul and virtuosity in whatever genre, you want to be close to that source. So that's kept us interested and interesting. But we're willfully close. willfully eclectics.

Yeah, I think that's great. Now, if someone is discovering your music today, what one song would you want to start them out with and why? That's a great question. I'm tempted to say the latest song that we've got out called Stronger, and I know that seems like an obvious promotional thing to say, but it's actually a great distillation of the spirit of Hugh and Cry. It's a very confessional lyric.

The lyric is about resilience. and personal strength in the face of public crises. So the whole tension between why do I feel too tired to save the world? Save the world has been a big Hew and Cry theme for many years and it sounds like it's turned up again on this record. So there's a very sensitive soul at the heart of this record, but the record is very powerful. It's driving.

It's rhythmic. It's ambitious. It reaches for the sky. So that's, to me, you work your way back from the current single stronger because that's very much the essence of what Hugh and Cry is about. and there's a crucial line in it, which says, let the softest kind of power make me stronger. And that's very much a statement about philosophy.

Yeah, that's a great statement. You just mentioned you have a great infusion of soul, pop, jazz. Was there ever a moment in your recording career that a label head, A&R, producer, they just said to you, you have to be more commercial. Did you fight that battle at all? Yeah, and we won the battle. We did fight that battle and we won that battle.

There was a famous moment when we were recording our hit record, second album, remote. There was a song called Sweet Invisibility, which was a kind of funk Latin song. And we had found a guy called Angel Hernandez who did Latin horns for blocking heads and David Byrne.

And we brought him in to do a chart, to lay down a chart and lay down this horn. So we hadn't heard it until the day. And it was the most ornate, beautiful burrow, exploratory experimental Latin horn track you've ever heard. Our producers immediately moved in to say, okay, we'll take that tiny bit, and we'll take that tiny bit,

and we'll just repeat it. We went over our dead bodies. This is what we're here to make music for it. And we literally threw ourselves across the mixing desk and said, leave this piece of music alone. And we kept winning those fights. But the thing is, Ray Charles put it best, you know, you use jazz musicians and you depart from jazz

because jazz musicians have the chocks for everything. They have the chops for folk. They have the chops for blues. They have the chops for stroll for pot or whatever. They always have the capacity for it. So we always used to make that case to people that when we have a jazz element and what we're doing, it's keeping things flexible and open and keeping things new and fresh in a kind of deep sense.

Yeah. Now, if you could step outside yourself and look at Hugh and cry as a fan, what do you think is the thread over the years that has kept your music connecting with everyone, especially those that have followed your career? I think we're trying to connect with them in a powerful, popular, but complex way. You know, the lyrics are always operating on several different levels. And people sometimes say, it took me 25 years to figure out what you were singing about and what you were trying to say.

To me, that's a result because it means that people are pondering over what you're doing. We always shot for the moon. I mean, our idea of a pop gig is all the guys in Steely Dan standing with her backs to the audience blown away. So that's our idea of what a pop gig is. But my brother's a consummate arranger and a consummate producer. And he was always, don't Boris get to the chorus, but on the way to the chorus be as complex and as rich as you could possibly be, but also try to be hummable, popular, memorable and striking.

So that's what I would say is the consistency if you can cry. It's complex pop. Nice. Now, your fans, they've followed you for years. When you have someone that will come up to you and tell you that your songs help them through difficult times, how does that make you feel, especially since you were the one that wrote the song? It feels fantastic. I mean, I love the fact that songs have journeys into people's lives that you can't control and you can't predict.

That happens a lot when we're out playing small venues and people come up and just say you go. me through this or you help me to achieve this, which is even just as nice when people say that the songs helped them aspire to a butt higher and better state of affairs to try to study for a degree or to try to go for a project or an entrepreneurial opportunity. Very, very pleased to hear that. And we even wrote a song about it called Ordinary Angel, which was a big track from the second album remote. And that's all about the way that pop music can inspire you, give you wings. And I mean, I don't think there's any greater functionality for popular music than that.

It's to inspire people to stretch for a goal and get there. It's fantastic. Yeah, it is. Now, sometimes you're sitting down, you're writing a song, you have an idea and a perception behind it. Then, as time passes, sometimes things will change. Is there a song that has a little bit different interpretation now than it did when you first wrote it? Yeah. Yeah, that's a good.

That's a good question. The obvious one I just talked about was violently, which was about personal tensions that became a kind of a peace song. I'm struggling to think of one that's obvious at the moment, to be quite honest. That's not a problem. Like you said, your music has always been sincere, it's been emotionally honest. Do you feel that audiences now are looking for more authentic songs than they ever have?

I think so. There's something about AI that's driving people to, the human and the authentic and the live performance. I think people are more into flaws and honesty and a certain crackness faced with the kind of the perfections of artificial intelligence or the coming perfections of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence can't tell a heart-rending story where you might actually believe it.

Whereas if I'm standing in front of you and you can see every reaction of me, I often say when I'm playing live, this is therapy I'm getting paid for, you know, rather than having to pay for it. So I think we're going to have a lust for live to riff off the old Iggy Pop song. I think we're going to have a lust for the live and the authentic. And it's only going to increase. And I think it's good news for people like us who have defined herself by live performance all throughout our career. So yeah, I think there's a time.

The more the smarter the machines get and the smarter the people think that they are who control the machines. They're ultimately not smart because they're not going to do. defeat the human. Yeah, I am so glad you brought that up. I've been here in Nashville for over 30 years producing people, helping them get started in the industry. I'm always bringing up if you go back to the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, and if you listen to those songs, there's a lot of things they all have in common. They had a distinct passion for their music, and they did not try to have a perfect recording. If you go back and listen sometimes, the guitar's out of tune, the piano's out of tune, there was always an imperfect recording, but that is what made the recording perfect.

Now, in today's world, they're trying to get that perfect recording, and they forget, we're human, we're not perfect. Sometimes it is that imperfection that makes it really resonate with the listener. I'm sure you have seen that change right along with the rest of us. The beauty of what you are doing is that you are staying true to your sound. Have you seen that create any issues for you? with everything that's changed over the years while you've been recording your same way?

Well, I would say there's obviously things like, you know, auto tune and there's ways in which things can be manipulated, the waveforms of things being manipulated, and I've seen them done it. I resist it myself, but I wonder whether there's going to be a bit of a division opening up in rock and roll

between people who want to sort of just lay it on the line as a physical being, a sweaty mammal in the world, you know, trying to articulate things that only songs can articulate. And one branch, and then another branch will be people who maybe like a machine aesthetic and want to see things become a bit like

athletes who take steroids competing in their own form of games. We had a very odd, we've got a very odd relationship to both of those extremes with this new record because my brother, as he's been saying over the last couple of weeks, he was given advice to switch off his computers, but switch on the arpeggiators and switch on the synths. And have them have a conversation among themselves as physical machines, not digital possibilities.

And so we would wake up in the morning, go to get into the studio. And the arpeggiator or the MOOC would suggest something that we should play. I mean, that sounds a wee bit mystical and a bit weird. But it was hot, it was cold, it was malfunctioning, it was ready to go, it wasn't ready to go. And we wrote songs to these machines calling out to us. But they're not, it wasn't AI. It was a very, it was almost like, and we have this whole thing we're saying at the moment, where if you go to the NASA Sound Library

and you listen to how they've rendered the waveforms of the transmissions of objects in deep space whether it be quasar or black holes or the background radiation of the universe, the universe sounds like Georgio Moroda. You know, the universe sounds like a synth or a pulse or an arpeggiator.

So we think what we've made is almost the ultimate folk record because it's all waveforms and it's all tapping into kind of a deep emanations, deep power forms, power waves. But trust a musician, if you're worried about technology and you're worried about technology taking over humanity, give it to the musicians and they'll sort it out, they'll figure out a creative relationship,

they'll test its limitations, they'll glory in its limitations, they'll humanise the problem of a technology, we're either embracing it heedlessly or we're resisting it in a ludic fashion. I think musicians can show a third way. Yeah, and musicians, I have seen them sometimes getting in the studio, they're immersing themselves into the project, and then all of a sudden, one of them makes them mistake. Yet the whole band follows the mistake and everybody goes, oh, we have to get rid of that. We have to get rid of that. And ultimately is the greatest sound and you can't touch that flaw. Yeah. Again, this record, we would switch on the machines and they would do something we had not

predicted or they would resonate in ways that we couldn't predict. And the biggest fight I had with my brother, who is a bit of a perfectionist, is to say, Gregory, that's what happened in that moment. That's what the machines wanted to do. Let's go with it. And so if you listen to the record, you'll hear strange noises and strange backgrounds and strange foregrounds. And we fought to keep them in. And also because we are running our own label and we're funding fuel ourselves, you know, we have that power and that autonomy to make those kinds of decisions. That's also important as well. Yeah, exactly. Now, if someone's listening and they're following their creative dream, but wondering, man, should I do this? What would you tell them? I would tell them. I would tell them.

that, well, I would tell them as an atheist that they only have a limited amount of time to do beautiful, brilliant things and every moment is precious. And because it's precious, don't waste it on formula or cliche or the obvious or the inauthentic or the careerist. No time left. There's never any time left not to do the thing that you must do, the purest thing that you can do, whether you're sitting with a harmonica on an empty bottle, empty glass bottle, or whether you're sitting with a wall full of

arpeggiator, synthesizers and simulators. You know, do the thing that you think is inimitable, cannot be copied. However old you are, you don't have time left to do anything less. Absolutely. Keep chasing that dream for sure. Now, over your career, you've performed in large stadiums, you've performed in intimate shows. What's your favorite to do? The large stadiums, or break it down and do that intimate acoustic show, where it's just unplugged, so to speak. Any preferences? I love both.

I love both. The intimate stuff is amazing, but it can be overwhelming in terms of the audience. The passage of their soul is, you know, right across our face and their faces right in front of you,

but that can be the most intense gig. But then when we're doing a tour in the UK in October with a full band, full eight piece, nine piece band. And when everybody's on the dime, the Hammond organ is playing, the horns are playing,

the black and vocals are kicking in. There often can be no better experience. So I'm lucky that we have a career in both tracks going on both routines. Yes, it's always nice to look back and reflect and be happy with everything you've done. Now, in closing, where can people find you so they can follow your music and follow where you are? The best thing to do is to go to the web and find us in www.hunecry.com. UK, everything is there. All routes lead from there. Roots and routes lead from there. And we're very big on Facebook, so try and find us on Facebook as well. And we encourage you if you

come and see us. And we're very, very strict rules about using smartphones doing our performances. If you don't use your smartphone to record your favorite songs, and if you don't put it up on social media, we throw you out of the building. That's very, very strictly enforced. So come and see us there and we would love to see you. And thanks for the interview. Tony, this has been great. Yes, this has been great conversation. great information. I really appreciate you joining us today. All right, man. Thanks, good. Best in Nashville. Thanks so much. Thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the show.

This has been a Tony Mantor production. For more information, contact media at plateaumusic.com.