Dave Stewart: "The song 'Sweet Dreams' was written in just a few minutes"

In the "Art on Ice" show, Dave Stewart performs his "Eurythmics" world hits live. Here he tells us exclusively how the songs came about, what they mean to him today, and he explains how he combines figure skating with blues and voodoo.
Interview: Christoph Soltmannowski.

Interview: Christoph Soltmannowski
Photo: Ben Tischhauser

Dave, we know you like being in the studio a lot. You've also produced the songs and albums of many great musicians there. Now you're back on the road as a live musician, how does that feel?
Dave: I've always enjoyed playing live, even in the nineties with the "Spiritual Cowboys". But Annie hasn't wanted to go on tour for some time now. As "Eurythmics", we made over 130 songs together - and I just want to play them! Nile Rodgers invited me to the Meltdown Festival in London in 2019, and I suddenly realized that this was the perfect opportunity to play the "Eurythmics" songbook live, in front of guests from different genres.

Dave Stewart, born in Sunderland (GB) in 1952, has enjoyed great success worldwide since the 80s as "Eurythmics" together with Annie Lennox. He later founded the "Spiritual Cowboys". As one of the most creative minds in the music world, he also works as a producer and songwriter - for Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder,
Mick Jagger and Bryan Ferry. He has also written film music and musicals - as he recently did with Joss Stone.

40 years have passed since your huge hit "Sweet Dreams". How do the songs affect you after all this time?
Dave: You always associate songs with what you experienced when you first heard them. Someone once told me that he had seen the video for "Sweet Dreams" on MTV when he was ten years old - and that he was afraid of the cow that appeared in it. Every song reminds me of how it was created back then. It was always different - I never chose the easiest way. So we recorded "There Must Be An Angel" and "Would I lie to you" in a small room, in a suburb of Paris, with a small 8-track recorder.

But sometimes you also rented a whole castle for the recording sessions, as you write in your book.
Dave: I think the place where you do something has a very big influence on how you do it. Annie and I never tried to write songs. We gathered
experiences - and as soon as we met, the songs found us - boom! 20 minutes and the song was there.

As he did back then with Annie Lennox, Dave Stewart "only" plays guitar on the "Eurythmics" songbook and does not sing himself. He is supported by a band of female musicians and three female singers. And at 8.40 pm on the dot, he drinks a martini.
Photo: Ben Tischhauser

Was "Sweet Dreams" also written in a few minutes?
Dave: Yes. Just like "Here Comes the Rain Again", "Would I Lie to You?" and also "There Must Be An Angel". All of them! 45 minutes - at most. It never took longer than that. And if we needed longer, we already knew that it wouldn't work!

You recorded your first album with the legendary producer Conny Plank.
Dave: Conny showed me that there are no rules. I told him I wanted to sound like someone falling down a well. And then we hung the microphone in a well. I was always experimenting. Sometimes I just let the echo device run on and on. That became part of the sound.

With singer Annie Lennox, 69, who no longer wants to go on tour (but is still close friends with him), Dave Stewart made his mark on the pop music world as "Eurythmics" from 1983. (Picture from 1986.)

Annie Lennox is not on the tour - Vanessa Amorosi, Rahh and your daughter Kaya are singing instead.
Dave: It's great with them - they have very different voices. That fits, because Annie and I have always changed our style from album to album. And our fans have always gone along with that! My daughter's voice is very emotional. Rahh is more of a powerful singer. And Vanessa Amorosi is more at home in rock.

At "Art on Ice", figure skating stars move to your music - what will that be like?
Dave: I had a long chat with the makers of "Art on Ice", Oliver Höner and Reto Caviezel, last night. They told me that the skaters will always move differently to the loud live music.

And what does that mean now?
Dave: Actually, I don't know. I talked to them a lot about voodoo - about blues music and gris-gris and stuff like that. The blues has always run through my music from the beginning. Let's see what comes out of it, how we implement it. In any case, I got them to look at these voodoo images and symbols.

What connects you to Switzerland?
Dave: Annie and I used to play here a lot. We made a lot of great memories. My current connection to Switzerland is my business partner Johan: we both love martinis. Thanks to him, I now have my own vodka called "Poetry". With my hat on the label. To be honest, it's not entirely safe to have your own vodka. But I only drink one every day. Always at exactly the same time, at 8.40 pm.

Let's take a look into the future: what do you think of artificial intelligence? Will it one day replace even creative people like you?
Dave: Paul Allen, who founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, was a good friend of mine. He gave me a laptop back in 1992 and talked to me about AI. Nobody can stop this rapid development. You can set rules, but nobody can control it. All the information goes into one big brain. Joe Walsh from the Eagles once said something funny: "As long as it doesn't trash a hotel room or throw the TV in the pool, I'm not afraid of artificial intelligence." If you want the software to suggest lyrics and melodies, you say: Do something sad! Then you'll get something sad. But will it be as good as a song by Leonard Cohen? I doubt it.

The whole interview as a video podcast

The whole interview by event. editor Christoph Soltmannowski with Dave Stewart as a video

https://vimeo.com/888019922