:00:00. > :00:16.Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sackur. My guest today is a hugely
:00:17. > :00:29.influential contemporary music maker, once styled the brainiest man
:00:30. > :00:33.in pop. Except the word" pop" doesn't fit Brian Eno. He was a
:00:34. > :00:37.member of Roxy Music in the early 70s, but he went his own way,
:00:38. > :00:39.developing ambient music, audiovisual installations and
:00:40. > :00:45.collaborative with a host of big names, including David Bowie, U2 and
:00:46. > :00:52.Coldplay. His output has been prolific and very, but was easy, --
:00:53. > :01:18.what is he, musician, composer or an artist impossible to label.
:01:19. > :01:26.Brian Eno, welcome to HARDtalk. You have got a body of work, musical
:01:27. > :01:32.creativity that spans almost five decades. And yet you have in the
:01:33. > :01:36.past described yourself as an nonmusicians. What do you mean by
:01:37. > :01:43.that? When I started using that term, I had appeared at a point
:01:44. > :01:45.where there was a huge stress on musicianship, and there were bands
:01:46. > :01:51.backs turned to the audience. I playing, very things with their
:01:52. > :01:54.didn't come into music from that route, I did not come into music
:01:55. > :02:00.from learning an instrument and then standing up and writing songs on it.
:02:01. > :02:05.I came out of painting, that is what they studied. I realise that
:02:06. > :02:09.contemporary music, Canterbury studio practice in particular, was
:02:10. > :02:13.really a way of painting with sound. -- contemporary. It was quite a
:02:14. > :02:18.natural transition to move into music. Plus, at that point, you had
:02:19. > :02:22.recording studios, a whole set of new instruments, electric
:02:23. > :02:27.instruments. You still had to have some basic musicianship to begin
:02:28. > :02:32.with, did you play instruments? Not really. I very poorly play the
:02:33. > :02:39.guitar, and keyboards. But really not very well. Can you read music?
:02:40. > :02:42.No. But most of the people I know can't read music. That's not
:02:43. > :02:51.unusual. Most of the state read music. It is fascinating to think of
:02:52. > :02:55.you seeing music as meeting painting and visual art, somewhere in the
:02:56. > :03:01.middle. Can you explain to be more about that sensibility, how that
:03:02. > :03:08.works for you? When you are creating a sound, are using it? Sometimes,
:03:09. > :03:13.yes. And I'm thinking in sort of pictorial or sculptural terms, a lot
:03:14. > :03:18.of the time. Thinking of a musical space of some kind, and what
:03:19. > :03:22.populates that space. I'm not usually thinking in terms of, this
:03:23. > :03:27.is in a minor and that is a G Sharp, and I don't know what these
:03:28. > :03:32.things mean. I don't really work that way. I am just thinking back to
:03:33. > :03:36.the beginning, I know you often say, I do like to look back, but I can
:03:37. > :03:42.still picture you in Roxy Music with the long hair, alongside Bryan Ferry
:03:43. > :03:47.and the others, playing music. You are performing, do you not believe
:03:48. > :03:52.in performing any more? I do particularly like doing it myself.
:03:53. > :03:57.Most of what I do in a recording studio. -- do not particularly like.
:03:58. > :04:02.It is quite hard to take to the stage. It is a little like asking a
:04:03. > :04:07.painter to do a picture on stage for you. It is not the performance art
:04:08. > :04:11.in a painting. And what I do isn't really a performance art. I make
:04:12. > :04:16.music in the way someone paints a picture. I add things, take things
:04:17. > :04:21.away, stretch them very much like a graphic artist. I tell you what,
:04:22. > :04:29.let's begin by actually listening to you, the most recent sound you have
:04:30. > :04:38.created. You have an album out, called The Ship. Let's get a flavour
:04:39. > :04:53.of what you are doing. (AMBIENT MUSIC PLAYS).
:04:54. > :05:01.Is that what most of us would now know as ambient music, how would you
:05:02. > :05:07.describe it? I think you could call it that. I mean... Ambient is a word
:05:08. > :05:14.that I came up with. You invented it. I cannot really say I invented
:05:15. > :05:18.the music, more and more people had been trying to work in an area of,
:05:19. > :05:24.sort of, spacious, environmental type of music, I gave the movement
:05:25. > :05:28.and name, really. I can't claim that I invented the music, but I did
:05:29. > :05:34.identify it as a separate category, I guess. Listening to it, the
:05:35. > :05:39.features of it that struck me are... It's the sort of music that
:05:40. > :05:43.doesn't really seem to have a narrative as such. It is open-ended
:05:44. > :05:48.will stop one gets the feeling you could listen to it and then sort of
:05:49. > :05:54.zone out for a bit and pick it up again, is that the idea of it? Yes.
:05:55. > :06:03.I think of it like a painting. You don't sit and look at the painting
:06:04. > :06:08.all the time it is on your wall. You can do something else and turn away.
:06:09. > :06:11.The picture is always there but your attention is not always necessary
:06:12. > :06:15.there. I wanted to make the kind of music that operated more like that,
:06:16. > :06:21.that did not demand continuous, focused attention. But in a sense, I
:06:22. > :06:26.have never before come across a musician who, if that is what you
:06:27. > :06:29.call yourself, and you debate that, somebody who creates a sound that
:06:30. > :06:32.says, I create this sound deliberately with the idea that
:06:33. > :06:40.people often want really be listening to it. That's right,
:06:41. > :06:43.that's my mission. It is at my methane, that sounds absurd. Why
:06:44. > :06:48.bother if you don't really want them to listen. -- if you don't mind me
:06:49. > :06:56.saying. When they do listen it is very rewarding. That is different
:06:57. > :06:59.with what is happening with muzak, which is when you do start listening
:07:00. > :07:02.to it, there is not much happening. Isn't that what a lot of your
:07:03. > :07:07.critics claim you have been producing? Some of them. The album
:07:08. > :07:13.titles themselves are an indication of what you are about. One of your
:07:14. > :07:19.earlier -- early ambient albums, music for airports, indicates you
:07:20. > :07:24.wrote something that you think would be suitable for people rushing from
:07:25. > :07:29.A to B, catching a flight, and your music could help them destress, calm
:07:30. > :07:36.down, I don't know. It seems a decent thing to do. Even that, even
:07:37. > :07:40.worse than muzak, elevator music. I don't think there is anything to
:07:41. > :07:45.Kelly wrong with having music in elevator is or airports, but I still
:07:46. > :07:50.think it is something that composers could address. When that idea
:07:51. > :07:54.appeared of elevator music, people just talk already quite bad music
:07:55. > :07:58.and made it a little bit worse. And then put it in elevator is. I
:07:59. > :08:03.thought, what about taking this job seriously, just like, you know, you
:08:04. > :08:06.can have people just paint their war with any old colour they want, or
:08:07. > :08:11.you can have people who think about it, interior designers, they called,
:08:12. > :08:14.who think about, how could we make this really work well. What I am
:08:15. > :08:19.saying is, we use music in all sorts of places all the time. But most of
:08:20. > :08:22.the time we don't think very well about what we are doing with it. So
:08:23. > :08:26.I want to say that composers should be responsible for that job. They
:08:27. > :08:30.should take the responsibility of that job. It seems to me there is
:08:31. > :08:34.another interesting thing going on with your music, and it ties into a
:08:35. > :08:39.wider cultural point you have in making for years now, which is that
:08:40. > :08:42.you feel there is a real sort of lack of attention span about so much
:08:43. > :08:48.of what we do and what we create, and I think you have been involved
:08:49. > :08:54.with this long now movement, which calls for a more measured, longer
:08:55. > :08:56.term approach to human life and all forms of creativity. Your music
:08:57. > :09:02.doesn't really have a beginning, middle and end. It just feels like
:09:03. > :09:07.it could go on forever. Yes. And in fact, my ambition always, was to
:09:08. > :09:12.make pieces of music that are theoretically infinite in length. So
:09:13. > :09:19.I invented another word after ambient, which is generative, which
:09:20. > :09:22.is music that is made by a set of instructions, essentially, a set of
:09:23. > :09:28.rules, and somehow reduces itself for a long period of time. This
:09:29. > :09:32.fascinates me because this is you, in recent years, using the latest
:09:33. > :09:38.computer technology and software, so you, in essence, load some thematic
:09:39. > :09:45.instructions into a computer, and then the actual music, the sound, is
:09:46. > :09:50.a sort of randomly generated... Variation on the theme is that you
:09:51. > :09:57.have laid down. So you actually haven't written the specific sounds
:09:58. > :10:01.that emerge. I haven't written it. And furthermore I won't ever hear
:10:02. > :10:07.all of it either, because the piece can carry on creating itself out of
:10:08. > :10:09.my presence. So you fundamentally undermine our notion of what the
:10:10. > :10:14.composer is. Yes. That's exactly right. Again I was in the first
:10:15. > :10:20.person to do this. It was part of the brief of people like Philip
:10:21. > :10:25.Glass and Terry Reilly, all of those kind of composers, who started
:10:26. > :10:30.working with, not specific pieces of music, but with sets of instructions
:10:31. > :10:36.for making pieces of music. The idea was that that is like a little
:10:37. > :10:40.genetic message like like a seed, you plant the seed and turns into
:10:41. > :10:44.something, it can't predict what it will exactly turn into. On a
:10:45. > :10:46.philosophical level that is fascinating, on any given moment
:10:47. > :10:50.when you are hearing that sound it is unique and will not ever be
:10:51. > :10:52.reproduced ever again. Philosophically that is really
:10:53. > :10:57.interesting, on a practical level, even the sort of subtlety and nuance
:10:58. > :11:07.that comes with this sort of music, which to a layman like me frankly
:11:08. > :11:10.can sound the same, on a practical level, what does an audience get out
:11:11. > :11:16.of these extraordinarily rendered nuances? They are not completely
:11:17. > :11:20.random. In the same sense that the seed of a flower isn't completely
:11:21. > :11:24.random. That seed is something that has slightly randomised a large set
:11:25. > :11:31.of instructions that have been carried on the many generations.
:11:32. > :11:36.Like a pattern. It is adaptive. It is not just any old set of sounds
:11:37. > :11:42.doing any old thing, it is actually quite a honed process, within which
:11:43. > :11:46.there is a certain amount of probability, rather than randomness.
:11:47. > :11:48.It can behave in some different ways and the permutations can be
:11:49. > :11:54.different from one moment to another. But the way I tried to
:11:55. > :11:59.explain it to people is, we tend to think of composers as sort of
:12:00. > :12:02.architects of sound, so an architect being someone who specifies every
:12:03. > :12:08.part of a building, every door handle,... Every little bit is
:12:09. > :12:12.consciously created. That's right. That's how we tend to think of
:12:13. > :12:15.composers. What I am saying is that we should stop thinking of them as
:12:16. > :12:20.architects and start thinking of them as gardeners full people who
:12:21. > :12:25.plant things, and those things grow and have their own lives, separate
:12:26. > :12:31.from the intentions and desires... The phrase sound landscaping... I
:12:32. > :12:36.will be brutally honest, that sounds somewhat pretentious. But that makes
:12:37. > :12:42.sense to you. Everything good sounds pretentious at first. You are a
:12:43. > :12:47.sound landscaper, not the composer. Yes. I would be quite happy with
:12:48. > :12:50.that ascription. Let's actually take some of those fascinating thoughts
:12:51. > :12:55.and apply them not just to sound, but the visuals as well, you
:12:56. > :12:58.actually went to art school, you came out in the visual sensibility
:12:59. > :13:04.before a musical one, and you have done loads of installations, art,
:13:05. > :13:08.using light in different ways, if we can bring up some shots here of an
:13:09. > :13:15.amazing project you did on the Sydney Opera House, is this
:13:16. > :13:18.reflective of your generative idea, you have, I don't know how many
:13:19. > :13:22.thousands and thousands of lights that you were projecting onto the
:13:23. > :13:28.sales of the Opera House, what was this all about? This was a
:13:29. > :13:36.three-week peace, I was project in from a huge battery, a very powerful
:13:37. > :13:40.project, onto the sales, and it was a generative piece so I do not know
:13:41. > :13:46.what was... If we just breathe at a moment -- freeze that. It looks like
:13:47. > :13:51.a fascinating piece of abstract art, but in fact, you had never seen
:13:52. > :13:55.before. It came up from the instructions that you have loaded
:13:56. > :13:58.into your system. That's right. I had seen individual parts of it, but
:13:59. > :14:03.never seen that particular permutation before. Really it is to
:14:04. > :14:07.do with permutations. I make all the elements, but then of course the
:14:08. > :14:12.elements, since there are several 100 of them, can mutate in millions
:14:13. > :14:17.and millions of different ways. I let the process run, and it all
:14:18. > :14:21.happens quite slowly, which is an important part of it, while you are
:14:22. > :14:25.looking at this, it were not really conscious that it is changing. Until
:14:26. > :14:35.you realise a few minutes later that it has changed.
:14:36. > :14:46.You are embracing the idea that it does not really have narrative stop
:14:47. > :14:52.it is just there as the background and people can take it or leave it.
:14:53. > :14:59.Most artists are driven by at the vigil of vision they want to get
:15:00. > :15:06.down, on paper, canvas, musical score, what ever. I have the vision,
:15:07. > :15:14.it has to do with what for me was the great understanding of evolution
:15:15. > :15:18.theory that complexity arises out of simplicity and I think that is such
:15:19. > :15:23.an important message because I atheist and one of the most
:15:24. > :15:27.difficult things that atheists have to say to the world is all this
:15:28. > :15:35.complexity, came from the bottom up. Upon to make the kind of art
:15:36. > :15:40.that proves that is possible. The elements are simple, I being
:15:41. > :15:46.transparent and now I let them to mutate and it makes this
:15:47. > :15:53.extraordinary... It is absolutely the antithesis of the artist as
:15:54. > :15:59.creator, god figure. It you do not mind, I want to look back little bit
:16:00. > :16:04.at your past. In your primary business, your first real creative
:16:05. > :16:08.business which is rock 'n' roll, contemporary music, you worked with
:16:09. > :16:17.a lot of people thinking early days of right ferry and Roxy Music, your
:16:18. > :16:23.collaboration with Bali, the epitome of the talented, arguably ingenious,
:16:24. > :16:30.individual artist. Try to get their vision down and you worked with them
:16:31. > :16:36.very happily. Very happy. Even though they were sort of playing
:16:37. > :16:42.God... It is not what I want to do but I do not mind other people doing
:16:43. > :16:48.it. I see those people as theatrical presences, people who design
:16:49. > :16:53.themselves to be theatre. The theatre was the whole history of
:16:54. > :17:02.rock music, the whole scenario of rock music. That is an interesting
:17:03. > :17:09.phrase, but what about Bowie and other artists such as Prince, the
:17:10. > :17:15.claims for those two would be they work transformative in some ways,
:17:16. > :17:20.they were geniuses. You buy the idea that individual artists of that
:17:21. > :17:25.character can be classed as transformative and genius? I think
:17:26. > :17:42.there are clearly some artist that make more difference than others but
:17:43. > :17:48.I have another word, which is. There are all fertile people interactive
:17:49. > :17:55.and occasionally they come up with something and that something can
:17:56. > :18:04.manifest in David Bowie or Prince, or me. They are manifestation of a
:18:05. > :18:11.lot of ideas. They did not invent it all themselves. We are making and
:18:12. > :18:17.synthesis of history. If I may intrude into your past, if you work
:18:18. > :18:25.-- when you are working with Bowie and seminal albums, would you call
:18:26. > :18:31.yourselves the producer? What was your role? This creative... Sort of
:18:32. > :18:37.effect you are describing is fascinating. We think of Bali and
:18:38. > :18:43.think of his music and we think of his music at is it really? --
:18:44. > :18:49.Bowie. It is so hard to talk about this because in the popular arts in
:18:50. > :18:54.particular, it is repackaging of thousands of things you have heard
:18:55. > :19:01.and something that you have added to it. What you added might just be the
:19:02. > :19:10.way you put it together. How much did you add to what he did? First of
:19:11. > :19:15.all, I was not the producer. I was collaborating with David. David had
:19:16. > :19:22.been listening to pay particular album of mine, my first ambient
:19:23. > :19:26.album, called discreet music. Months before that he had said that was the
:19:27. > :19:33.only thing he could listen to for along time. He was getting over very
:19:34. > :19:41.problematic period in his life. I was just the working with the idea
:19:42. > :19:48.of landscaping music and he wanted to do that. I would set up sonic
:19:49. > :19:56.scenarios for him and he would react to them. It is fascinating
:19:57. > :20:01.discussion because it gets to the heart of creativity and
:20:02. > :20:06.collaboration. David Bowen is undisputedly fascinating and great
:20:07. > :20:12.popular artist. You also have done work on some of the great commercial
:20:13. > :20:18.pop albums of our time, from Coldplay, U2, bunch of others as
:20:19. > :20:24.well. Is that different process all the same sort of creativity.
:20:25. > :20:30.Basically it is designed to sell billions of records. I think they
:20:31. > :20:35.are inviting me to work with them for the same reason. They want to go
:20:36. > :20:40.somewhere different. People do not realise that artists do not just
:20:41. > :20:44.want to have the same heat over and over again. It is boring. The thrill
:20:45. > :20:49.of being an artist is going somewhere you have not been before.
:20:50. > :20:52.If you have been with the band for along time, everybody gets into
:20:53. > :20:59.habits and things tend to turn out the same. You can hear that in a lot
:21:00. > :21:07.of bad music. Career prize of the same old thing. -- Reprise. And
:21:08. > :21:12.record companies like that. They would hire producers who would say
:21:13. > :21:22.to the ban, let's do another one like that. How can we make this song
:21:23. > :21:28.stumble like that song that was hit. -- sound more like. I never did
:21:29. > :21:33.that. So I think that is why I was asked to produce lots of records.
:21:34. > :21:39.You are still very busy, we talked about the ship, your latest project.
:21:40. > :21:44.When you see the most exciting, arguably most transformative music
:21:45. > :21:50.or maybe other art form is happening right now? What really excites you
:21:51. > :21:54.as the new and innovative right now? There is the whole lot of class of
:21:55. > :22:03.things that I have little contact with and do not understand very well
:22:04. > :22:10.which are complex games like... You see a lot of creativity? This is
:22:11. > :22:16.really the future, in away, for some big new interactive art form.
:22:17. > :22:22.Really? I do not play them, my kids do, I would dismiss it as
:22:23. > :22:27.moneymaking commercial ventures... That is how pop music was thought of
:22:28. > :22:33.for very many years at the beginning. That is how everything is
:22:34. > :22:38.thought of... Are you getting into that creative sphere? Not really, I
:22:39. > :22:44.hardly understand it but I know it is something important. Not from my
:22:45. > :22:49.generation but I know where something is going to come from. I
:22:50. > :22:57.realise I67 and I am not going to start... The final thought and it
:22:58. > :23:02.goes back to the idea that we need to think about different timescale
:23:03. > :23:07.for the way we behave on this planet and the way we create also. I
:23:08. > :23:14.wonder, when we think in those terms, when you think of your music,
:23:15. > :23:21.will it stand the test of centuries and not just decades? It is an
:23:22. > :23:27.interesting question. I am surprised that it has stood the test of
:23:28. > :23:40.decades, I have to say. Would not have thought music airports, for
:23:41. > :23:46.example would still be selling. You know, when Prince died, they found
:23:47. > :23:50.thousands and thousands of hits of music of unheard and unpublished
:23:51. > :23:57.music. Have you got the same thing? Yes, terrible. I have an archive
:23:58. > :24:01.which is enormous. I do not know what is in it. I worked pretty much
:24:02. > :24:08.the whole time and I always make little nicks of whatever eye have
:24:09. > :24:14.been working on. Even if it is just little test. I put it in the
:24:15. > :24:21.archive. We will hear it one day... I hope not, there is some trash in
:24:22. > :24:48.there. Thank you so much for being on HARDtalk. Thank you.
:24:49. > :24:50.A day of huge contrasts on Tuesday across the UK.
:24:51. > :24:53.The southern half of the UK, warm and humid, but cloudy and wet,
:24:54. > :24:57.whereas it was very warm and largely sunny across Scotland,