IT’S A VAN’S MAN’S MAN’S WORLD

Pierce Turner recently revealed that when he was a member of the Arrows Showband a management decree dictated that they should stop singing falsetto songs, such as Beach Boys hits, because it “cast aspersions on the guys’ sexuality”.

One wonders, then, what they would have made of Brian Kennedy who, at a recent Amnesty International gig, performed a song-poem by gay poet Cathal O’Sharkey, a composition which can be seen as either gay or non gender-specific and which thus puts Kennedy out on a limb in relation to the rigid sex roles still too often imposed on performers in rock’n’roll. But does that bother him? Not really. He says he performed the same song during his recent midnight gig at Dublin’s Olympia.

“Cathal’s poem is called ‘My Black Haired Love’ and though it is about a man, it could be about a woman,” says Brian. “But after I sang it at the Amnesty gig quite a few people came up and said ‘that was beautiful’, possibly not realising that it’s about a love affair between two men. And maybe some men just mightn’t be able to accept that if they knew this is what the song’s about, because sex roles and sexuality itself are both so sharply defined in rock.”

More than this, Kennedy believes that the predominant macho role imposed on males in rock is a “distortion”, somewhat like the harsh electric guitar is conspicuous by its absence in the collection of acoustic songs that made up his debut album Captured.

“The very nature of the sound in rock is distorted,” he says. “Distorted guitar, distorted noise, lots of volume and that, to me, is a sign of the kind of displaced anger that dominates rock. And part of that must be the inability men have to be emotional with one another in a more obvious way. It’s the same in relation to violence against women in rock, which is displaced emotional language. There definitely is a way of speaking, looking, dressing that is so savagely imposed on women in rock culture that it’s almost pornography. They’re supposed to be completely submissive and nothing else.”

Surely males who don’t live up to that macho stereotype also are marginalised, as has happened to countless pop stars from Neil Sedaka in the 1950s through to Cliff Richard in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and probably beyond?

“Absolutely – either that or they’re seen as dubious,” suggests Brian. “I remember doing an interview in Helsinki and someone said ‘aren’t you worried that your album does not kick ass?’ and I thought to myself, ‘Is that all people think music should be about, that it should kick ass all the time?’.”

When one realises how popular that phrase is in rock culture – which was originally defined, and is still dominated, by males – couldn’t one ask why this obsession with the “ass”, whether kicked or otherwise? Was Cliff right when he suggested that the fist raised in the air at a heavy metal concert is a definite homo-erotic gesture? Likewise, when Kennedy speaks of as “displaced emotional language” between males in rock could part of that be the denial of homosexual longing?

“Well ‘kick ass’ is a very homo-erotic phrase and it is revealing that when rock fans focus on that rather delicate part of the anatomy they claim what they want to do is stick a boot up it!,” he laughs. “But what exactly, are they really saying here? When guys put their fists in the air that way at a heavy metal concert, though, sure, it may be a distorted expression of some form of longing, it is still safe because at no point is anyone asking either the performer or the audience to do anything other than display a show of muscle and a sense of ‘let’s see how aggressive we can be together’. And part of it must be that someone on stage does have that cock with six strings on it. Yet it is, as I say, terribly safe. That’s why so many people buy into it and never ask themselves exactly what they are buying into. Or what they are really expressing about themselves.”

Will Brian Kennedy address such subjects in the songs he is currently writing?

“I’m beginning to,” he reflects. “The whole subject of intimacy between men is one I am very, very interested in. Not necessarily on a purely sexual level, but whether it is a man and his brother, a father and son or lovers. I’m really fascinated about how we’ve gotten to this point, in 1994, whereby it’s still really shocking to see a man hold another man’s hand or kiss a man, even in a greeting. And part of the negative baggage people attach to all this does come from gender roles as defined in rock culture. But for me, singing is something that enables me to transcend such limitations, enables me to be as emotional as possible and to sing to men, women whatever. My songs really are not gender specific. And I think this is why I took to music in the first place, to find a place of refuge to express such feelings.”

Brian Kennedy also first took to music growing up as a Catholic on the Falls Road. He suggests that the nature of Catholicism itself also gives rise to homo-erotic leanings.

“I’ve always fought the tendency to be labelled a Christian singer, particularly one whose base is Catholicism,” he says. “And part of the reason for that is that I don’t believe there is only one way to perceive God. That’s just another distortion of things that are in the dark, such as going into a confession box – which, to me, is really just an upright coffin! In that context, again, you’re in the dark and learning to be intimate with another man. That sounds like someone’s sexual fantasy to me, like one of those magazines where you write about how your ‘deepest desire’ is to get into a box and tell your secrets to some dude in a dress! That’s certainly not my sexual fantasy! But it was my experience. The whole concept of Catholicism is male-oriented in that way. We’re made to worship Jesus, while Mary barely gets a look in and the Catholic Church doesn’t even allow women priests, just servile nuns. So the whole tendency is towards man-to-man relationships. Yet, as in rock’n’roll, you don’t see that much intimacy maybe because, as I suggested earlier, to many people intimacy simply equals sex. That’s where panic sets in, particularly in relation to the Church.”

That surely also is the point at which this kind of displaced emotional language, and distortion of longing can lead to child abuse?

“Exactly,” says Brian emphatically. “And that, to me, is precisely what comes out of distortion and out of the inability to be intimate with another person without having to automatically think ‘is this sexual?’ Unfortunately, if you are a Catholic priest your diet of women is strictly rationed to, as I say, nuns or an overbearing mother or this statue of the unassailable Virgin Mary. In that context what do you really know about women? What do you really know about relationships other than the kind of dark, forbidden relationships you develop in a college with a load of other men – where you have to do things in secret or live in a state of denial about it all? Is it any wonder a priest’s view of the relationships between men and men or men and women is so twisted? Or that they end up involved in cases of child abuse?”

Brian Kennedy has, of course, recently shot into the spotlight as a result of his involvement in Van Morrison’s ‘Rhythm Blues and Soul Review’ tour/album and his recording of Van’s ‘Crazy Love’ which is featured in the movie When A Man Loves A Woman. Did Brian and Van sit down and discuss their respective religious beliefs along these lines? Was there any conflict caused by the fact that Van is a Northern Protestant and Brian a Catholic?

“Not that I was aware of,” he says, carefully measuring his comments about Morrison. “But then the world first approached me in Catholic Belfast in 1966, whereas he grew up earlier in a Protestant area of town. Yet it’s never been something we discussed at any great length, no. But then because I’m not a strict believer, and certainly don’t adhere to Catholicism, it’s not a subject I’m anxious to talk about. In fact I’ve spent half a life trying to shed all that. And yet, on the other hand, although people may say Van is spreading a Christian message, I don’t think he sees it in so limiting a sense. He knows I don’t believe as he does yet he basically allowed me to be myself within the framework of the show, and the songs. And though, more recently I cover something like ‘Whenever God Shines His Light On Me’ on stage that doesn’t necessarily mean that Van and I are addressing the same God. Though I do believe in the God force, of course.”

Indeed, Brian jokes that the only God he and Van Morrison were inclined to talk about during that tour was a God of music like Sam Cooke!

“Well, I think Sam Cooke is God!” says Brian, laughing. “To have that kind of voice and that ability to write those kind of songs definitely proves to me that Sam Cooke was totally in touch with the reason why he is on the earth. And I feel the same way about singing. There is nowhere else I feel quite as comfortable, or as useful, as I do when I am singing, particularly in the context of a live show. Singing is the best thing I do, have to offer and how I move in the world. And part of it clearly is this need to go out into the world and sing the most important messages possible. “Whether I’ve written those messages is another thing. And although right now I don’t even have a record deal, the point is that the demand for me to tour is tremendous, as a result of having worked with Van. In that sense things couldn’t be better. And no matter what happens, in terms of recordings, in the end, the most important thing to me is playing before an audience.”