 | | Vashti Bunyan |
As the folk songstress brings her gently beautiful music to the Bridgewater Hall, we asked her about getting back into music, regrets, being an inspiration and the resurgence of folk. How are you enjoying playing live? "It’s fantastic. It’s beyond my wildest dreams." Is it strange for you to be up on stage? "It’s getting less strange, but at first, I couldn’t believe I was there. I think I’m getting used to it, but every time I do it, it’s different. Certainly with this tour, it’s been completely different because there are ten other people on stage with me!" Yes, you’re playing with Adem, Vetiver and Juana Molina as a kind of ensemble. How is it going? "Well, we had five days to rehearse this show and we’re all very different in the way that we approach music, yet we managed to put it together. We were all surprised we were able to do it in that time.
 | | Vetiver |
"We do have a common thread and we were able to understand each other’s music, able to understand what each other meant about what should be played there. You have to remember that not all of us can read and write music, so the language was fascinating. "I can’t read or write music so I’ve always found it difficult to communicate with other ‘real’ musicians, but in this situation, there were many of us that couldn’t do it, so has to communicate in something like sign language. "So we’re really enjoying the shows. In fact, even in the intervals, we’re aching to get back on stage and for me, that’s something quite new!" It is only a year since you’ve been out on the road, but there is a lot of history to your story. Were you surprised by the reaction that your return to music caused?
 | | Vashti in 1968 (pic: Anthony McCall) |
"Immensely surprised, particularly because for so many years, I didn’t even consider myself as a musician. So to come back now and to receive such warmth is fabulous and unthinkable a few years ago. I sometimes think I must be living somebody else’s life." Is it everything that you could have wished for back when you were first making music? "It’s everything I ever wanted when I was 18 and didn’t achieve. It does feel surreal for it to be happening now, but on the other hand, it does make a lot of sense. I’ve done the other life, having children and family and all of those things that I wanted terribly, and if I’d tried to do them both together, it might not have worked. This way, I’ve managed to do each of them without hurting the other." So there are no regrets… "Perhaps if I’d ever had an inkling that this might have happened, maybe, and through my years, it might have been nice to have the odd chink of insight into my future, because I was always unhappy about having left music behind, but apart from that, I have absolutely no regrets." How do you feel about being named as an inspiration and influence to new folk musicians such as Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom? | "Things that are happening are so hard to grasp, there’s no sense to be made, so all you can do is make something that makes sense to you." | | Vashti on why she thinks folk music is so popular in modern times |
"I really don’t agree with that. I know that Joanna, for example, had never heard Diamond Day before she made her debut. But what they have done is made a world that my music can live in." Maybe it’s less of an influence and more of a thread of understanding that you had been where they found themselves… "Yes, I think when they found me, it was possibly an encouragement that what they were doing wasn’t alone, but I don’t know." Why do you think that folk has become such a vibrant scene? "I’m not sure. I thought it might be a little flame that would pass, but it seems to have grown and grown. I sometimes think it’s because of the state of the world.
 | | Vashti Bunyan |
"In the 60s when I was growing up, the world seemed to me to be such an extraordinarily difficult place to understand, so I had to make my own world. In the same way now, things that are happening are so hard to grasp, there’s no sense to be made, so all you can do is make something that makes sense to you and acoustic music seems to express that in some kind of way." So will it be another 35 years until the next album? "I hope not, I’d have to be 100 and something! No, I am beginning to write again. I find it very difficult to write songs whilst I’m out performing, but the ideas are starting to form again and I’m going to spend some time in Los Angeles in early summer doing some recording." Your songs are deeply personal. Do you ever worry about giving too much of yourself away? "Yes, I was very scared after we’d mastered Lookaftering. When I heard it from beginning to end, I realised how personal it was and I spent weeks staring at the ceiling all night, in absolute terror, thinking what are people going to make of it? And that’s what I thought about the first album as well. "But I think it’s a measure of how people are now; that they’re much more open to those kind of feelings now and that they don’t get embarrassed by hearing someone else’s personal thoughts." The 0 Degrees of Separation tour with Vashti Bunyan, Adem, Vetiver and Juana Molina comes to the Bridgewater Hall on Friday 19 January. Tickets are £12.50-17.50 | 
