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The Department of Tangents Podcast

DoT EP94: Bernard Fowler On Singing Backup with the Rolling Stones and His New Album, plus New Spoken Word from Kate Tempest

Years ago, playing a sort of improv game with friends in which we all picked super powers based on our personalities, I dubbed myself “Tangent Lad.” I was not a very strong superhero, and I could not defeat a super villain on my own, but I could distract them with Monty Python quotes and football trivia. I have many times since apologized to an interview subject in my capacity as a journalist by saying, “I am either very good or very bad at tangents, depending on how you feel about tangents.”

I had a rough time coming up with the concept and naming this blog/podcast. I knew I wanted to create a place where I could address things I’m passionate about – comedy, music, and horror. Finding a name that communicated all three of those things proved a bit impossible. I bugged my friends, and they all tried to help. To no avail. Then I thought, maybe I’m approaching this from the wrong angle. Maybe my lack of focus should be the focus.

As a journalist, I have written for The Boston Globe since 2000, starting out writing CD reviews and then writing a regular column on comedy for seven and a half years. I still contribute there, and to Kirkus Reviews, and other publications. I’m also a musician, and released my debut full-length album, Blue Skies and Broken Arrows, in March of 2015. And I’ve been publishing short horror fiction for a couple of years.

I like to climb into things I love and see how they operate. That’s what the Department of Tangents is for. The main thing here is love. To talk about the things that make I’ve loved forever, and some new things that might stand the test and be around, at least for me, for decades to come. I’ve had to be critical in my writing at times, and it might not all be nonstop roses here, but in the end, what I really want to talk about is the good stuff. That’s why I will regularly write about things I think are “Perfect,” even if someone can demonstrate empirically that they are flawed. Still perfect to me.

Also, fish.

I hope you, dear anonymous surfer person, will come to expect only the highest-quality, free-range, grass-fed tangents. And I hope some of you love the same things I do and find it useful. Or at least a welcome distraction until the others get here.

DoT EP94: Bernard Fowler On Singing Backup with the Rolling Stones and His New Album, plus New Spoken Word from Kate Tempest

Jun 20, 2019

Face it. Bernard Fowler has a better job than you. Not only does he release his own solo work, like his new album, Inside Out, he has also toured the world singing with the Rolling Stones for more than thirty years. He first started working with Mick Jagger on his solo album, She’s the Boss, in 1985. Producer Bill Laswell had told Fowler he had a job for him in London, but didn’t tell him with whom until he got in the same room with Jagger. As he tells me, he was more than surprised. But he aced the job, so when the Stones were getting ready to record Steel Wheels, Fowler got the nod to sing in the studio and on tour. He took charge of his part in the recording, going so far as to tell the guys to stop rolling tape so he could make suggestions. He has been firmly ensconced in that world ever since, touring and recording on Stones albums and solo albums, and writing with Ronnie Wood. As he says, he’s watched their children grow up.

The new album is a tribute to the Stones done in a spoken-word style, which helps brings out the stories in the lyrics. And it’s not just a greatest hits package. He does “Sympathy For the Devil, which you heard on last week’s episode, but other than that, Fowler takes a deeper dive with cuts like “Dancing With Mr. D,” “Sister Morphine,” and “All the Way Down.”

Fowler is happy to report that after his recent heart problems, Jagger is looking pretty spry onstage. And Fowler thinks the Stones are a better band now than they ever have been, and tells me why later in the interview. He says what he’s mainly learned from the band is that if you love what you do, you can do it for a long time, and at a very high level. He also says there are a few songs on the new tour’s set list that might surprise people.

Although it’s obviously a big part of his world, there’s more to Fowler than his work with the Stones. “When I’m not singing for the Rolling Stones,” he says, “in my world, I’m the Mick Jagger.” Over the years, he’s been a part of bands like Tackhead, Nicklebag (that’s “bag,” not “back”), and Little Axe. He’s also done session work on albums by Herbie Hancock, Bootsy Collins, Philip Glass, Duran Duran, Public Image, Ltd., and many others. We even talk about a short stint working with Steven Seagal, which Fowler was not at all happy I brought up, but I do love his reaction to that line of questioning. I spoke to him before a rehearsal with the Stones in London for the new tour, which kicks off this week at Soldier Field in Chicago. You can actually hear him getting his things together to go toward the end, and there are a couple of places where the connection dips a bit, but I hated to lose any of the great stuff Fowler was saying.