Dave Stewart talks new album, Sunderland roots and Memphis discovery

In a studio interview, Dave Stewart talked about his new album, his Sunderland roots and the injury and package that put him on the path to music. The 74-year-old musician is best known as one half of Eurythmics with Annie Lennox and has worked with Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan and Stevie Nicks.

He said he did not set out to make an album. He went into the studio, picked up an acoustic guitar and recorded himself singing songs off the top of his head. He had not written the words down. After about 20 songs, he decided he liked them as they were but wanted to add instruments. He and his friend Jesse, an engineer, played everything, guitar, bass, drums and keyboards, to make the recordings sound like a band. The album is called The Way It Was Back Then.

Stewart said the songs are about feelings rather than a plain account of events. He said older age brings memories and a feeling about what happened, and he wanted to express that. He described the Northeast as volatile at times, especially around football, and spoke about his connection to Sunderland. He had just returned from the city, where he played two sold out concerts of the whole album. The audience did not know any of the songs. He said he still goes back and has worked with young musicians from Sunderland over the years.

He also told the story of how music started for him. He wanted to be a footballer and was playing for three teams when another player broke his knee in three places. With his leg up and his mother having left the family home the same month, he was feeling low. A package arrived from a cousin nine years older who had moved to Memphis. It contained two pairs of Levi corduroy jeans and, underneath them, two blues albums. His father had made a homemade record player. Stewart put on one of the records and went into a trance. He had not listened to music before then and was not interested in it at all. In 1966, he then heard the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks and the Who on the kitchen radio and became nonstop.

Turning to the industry, Stewart said it has always been strange. He co-founded a company, Rare, to flip the traditional pyramid. In the old model, he said, major label executives sat at the top and the creative person was at the bottom. He wants creative people and their intellectual property at the top, with ownership staying with them.

On AI, he said it is past the point of worry. He joked that robot dogs with AI will chase people down the street and bite them within a couple of years. He mentioned Chinese robot races and said the technology is being trained for uses such as policing. He called it '1984 only worse' and said the world is changing at a very fast rate. He ended by saying: 'Music can save your life.'