INTERVIEW: Martin Page

- Kathryn Vaughn

Martin Page is a new name to some and a new voice to even more, but his sound echoes out a feeling that we all know him. Born and raised in England, his accent still hangs on as tightly as his love for (the American) soccer. Between studying graphic art and working at what he laughingly calls "soul robbing but character building jobs", Martin discovered bass guitar. With his love of American rhythm and blues and Motown, it's not surprising he landed in the United States. Martin has written #1 hits for Heart ("These Dreams") and co-written with Bernie Taupin, Starship's "We Built This City". His debut release, which combines Page's unique talents with such established, well-known veterans such as Phil Collins and Robbie Robertson, is titled, In The House of Stone and Light (Mercury).

C: You spoke about being between the dark and light when you made this recording. Share these experiences with us.

MP: It felt to me that what I was saying was the "House of Stone and Light" was my own body. It is my own soul - the part of inside of me which can be dark or light, strong or weak. The greatest place to go is to your own home to have shelter and security. It was basically a rebirth song, a journey into yourself to be still and your own house is your own peace of mind and own soul. I felt very strongly that everybody feels as I had felt, there's always going to be a battle between the dark and the light in your life. I've been very encouraged that people have actually picked up on what "The House of Stone and Light" is about.

I basically wanted this to be a very positive song, that there is always a place to go to and it's not over the sea or down the road to the pub. It's basically to go inside yourself. Once you've found that, your journey is done!

C: You often write about rain and candles. Why is that?

MP: I'm a great fan of ancient poetry and medieval images and I always felt like candles were really the light back when there wasn't any electricity and when things were simpler. Rain? I've always thought of it as a great term for cleansing. Candles and rain - even just saying the two together feels to me to conjure up a great image of spark and tenderness. I try to write movies with each song. They appear a lot because they give me certain moments in the songs - a sense of simpler times.

C: You produced this work yourself, writing and producing with the likes of Phil Collins, Bernie Taupin, Brenda Russell, Robbie Robertson and Geoffrey Oryema.

MP: I wanted to make this record purely organically. I wanted it to be recorded at home. I engineered a majority of the record myself by the studio being located in my house. I wanted that situation where the songs dictated who should be playing on the tracks. These are my demos. As songs began to form, it was like picking actors for a movie. It felt really right that Robbie Robertson should play guitar on "In The House of Stone and Light", giving it a very sort of traditional Indian feel.

Geoffrey Oryema, a wonderful vocalist who sings with Peter Gabriel - his tone sounds like the earth, very dusty. I was always looking for a voice that would work well with mine. His low tones seem to work very well with me and gave a great sense of heritage to the songs. For each musician that was involved, it felt more important that the musician was able to fit the song. It wasn't thought of to get guests and stars in, so it would look good. Even with Phil Collins, it felt so right that he would play drums. I was very lucky that these people had been around for me when I was working for artists in past projects. Brenda Russell was totally the right sound, character and spirit to be singing backups with me. It was important for me for people to come to my house, feel the music in my studio, stay with me, experiment and let emotion be the most powerful thing the players responded to.

C: How did these connections come about?

MP: Because of my past works - Phil Collins had heard of my writing with Go West and Earth Wind and Fire. We met up at the ASCAP award show in England, when we both had won awards for songwriting. He respected my writing and I'd been a big fan of his right from the beginning when he was playing drums with Genesis.

You wonder how you catch up with people you've been a fan of since you were a kid; this was an incredibly rewarding situation and also great verification that these people that I'd been fans of were now enjoying the music I was doing and wanted to be a part of it. They came back to help me when my time came.

C: Do you take songs from your own life?

MP: All the songs on this record are ones I relate to. "In The House of Stone and Light" is definitely a positive song about starting over again. "In My Room" was a hard song to write because it was a true story of what my mother went through as a young girl. She told me stories of her childhood, when she used to have to hide in her bedroom with her young brother when her father came home from the pub, drinking, and he would regularly beat her mother up. She used to have to hide all through this and go through the hell of hearing the arguments and her mother having to suffer. I wrote through the eyes of what her brother wanted to do, which was to face her father straight on, and stop the beatings. It's interesting because I found it to be a very healing song to a lot of people. It actually brings up the subject that the person I'm writing about is facing the truth.

With "The Door", I picked up a brook about Trablinka, the concentration camp of the Second World War and read this story of 600 Jews who had actually rebelled. It was the only time ever that Jews had planned and escaped from a concentration camp. The older people in the camp allowed the young ones to escape. I wrote it through the eyes of a survivor remembering the people that sacrificed themselves for her to get out. The door was either the door to freedom and the fields, or the door to the gas chamber. These 600 souls took that decision - to take the door to freedom. It takes amazing strength and is a great story of hope.

C: What's the toughest part of being a musician?

MP: Finding times when creativity is at its best. The hardest thing is to be able to break the rules, psychologically getting in this space where you can say, 'Anything can happen, and I'm allowing it to happen at this moment.'"

C: How about the best part?

MP: I have to say it's the moment you know you've been honest and true with a piece of music. That what you've been constructing is coming from a very real place and is not being manipulated by what you know or in how you've been trained. The best part of being a musician is when something has come out of you and you don't know where it has come from. It has come from a pure emotional spirit and soul, and you're able to capture that and feel it.

Martin often refers to his songs as electronic hymns. From the past with "These Dreams" (which Heart took to #1 on the charts, and a song Martin promises to do his way when he goes on tour) to the present with "In The House of Stone and Light", to the future, M. Page will be the signature marking history with this new genre of music.