Mood Ingenue: Robert Palmer's Comic Strip

The weather in Adelaide is glorious. The band are sitting around the pool at the top of the hotel but some of them are coming inside because they're getting burnt. Robert Palmer has a good tan. Rock 'n' roll!

Robert Palmer has always had time to take the sun. In 1978, when pale and pimples were in, he hit the Top 20 with the sunny Every Kinda People. Bad Case Of Loving You (1979) was, ahem, rougher, but Johnny And Mary and Clues were relaxed again. A 1983 cover of The System's You Are In My System was consummate Palmer, nurtured frustration, sly syncopation. And another hit.

Most of his 1988 audience came to know Robert Palmer through Addicted To Love and its trembling successor I Didn't Mean To Turn You On. Oh, and that video.

Robert Palmer has never been shy about his tan, or his grin, or his good looks. His singles are garrulous, the fallow opening lines of a fertile mind. His movements are smooth, his smile is easy. He sidles up to women in bars and says: You're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love. I didn't mean to turn you on. I've got a bad case of loving you. You are in my system. You're simply irresistible.

Robert Palmer has been married for some years now, the father of two. Is the womanising image difficult to reconcile with the (presumable) reality? "That (image) is something that's been foisted upon me," he explains, unhurried, "with the videos and the album covers, which are supposed to have a wry sense of humour, all the way through my career - what an awful word, career, sounds like a banker or something."

Robert Palmer laughs. He is very pleasant and very patient with my questions.

"But I can't really complain about that (image) because a lot of people are really backed into a corner by how they are percieved. Whereas with me, a song like 'She Makes My Day', that's a hit right behind 'Simply Irresistible' and I can't think of two pieces of music that are more dissimilar. To be accepted by the public for doing something of that breadth is a real delight. As far as the image versus reality thing, everybody has to deal with that. People treat me fairly well. If I was Keith Richards I'd have one kind of problem, y'know. If I was Bob Marley, I'd be dead."

Robert Palmer is not above being blunt, but then again pop music is not about being obscure. Pop music is about big, simple, clean statements and Robert Palmer can make them again and again. Most of his modern audience are surprised by tracks like Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley or Johnny And Mary - they've only known him since Addicted To Love. Is this annoying?

"No no no. In fact it's a nice thing. When I'm deciding what songs to do, it's nice being able to pull tunes out of the bag which I recorded 15 years ago and then still be viable as a new act - I trust those tunes whether the audience is familiar with them or not. Some of the tunes we do (live) I haven't even recorded and they go down great - it's more a case of having an instinct for what works within a show."

Palmer also has an instinct for what's fashionable, working with synthesisers in 1980, he scored with Johnny And Mary, and in 1985 (that's pre-Bon Jovi, trash historians) he dusted off old rock formats with the Power Station and enjoyed a couple more hits - Get It On and Some Like It Hot.

"It was an odd situation because I didn't actually 'work' with (The Power Station). They'd gone into the studio for fun and done some jams, asked me if I could think up some words to the melody, and I flew in. They were havin' a party and I sang on it, y'know? It was only afterwards that it got a bit out of hand, having to deal with Duran Duran mania."

Trends come and go very quickly. "I think they always have done. Pop music is a disposable item; I'm just pleased that some aspect of the music I make is considered pop, popular, y'know? I wouldn't know how to tailor what I do to suit any particular outlet. I make music to communicate - otherwise I'd be doin' jazz or something. I like to communicate and I like the form of pop songs, which I've done since I was a youngster. I don't think that as my craft improves and I get better at it that it should become inaccessible - on the contrary, I like the fact that it's getting across to a bigger audience."

What do you want to communicate? "Well, humour for one thing... and romance, and..." Robert Palmer laughs. "I guess that's about the breadth of it. The alternative soon becomes very apparent. The idea of a 'pity poor me' lyric doesn't appeal to me - it's just ridiculous. And the idea of including politics and religion in my repertoire I find vulgar. So the only choices I'm left with are humour and romance."

What do you think of groups that do include politics and religion in their repertoire? "What are you wearing?" Ummm... "I'm changing the subject. If you can't think of anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. I think things like that should be private, I don't like waving flags."

Humour and romance. Heavy Nova is the new Robert Palmer album and it has both. Humour in tracks like Change His Ways ("Deep in the jungle, he lost her favour / Another gambit, he would have made her / He gave her perfume, she use his razor..."). It's the sort of humour Palmer is best at: dance of the seven veiled remarks, a comic strip of boys and girls.

Heavy Nova also features one of Palmer's most gooey love songs, a paean to monogamy, She Makes My Day. "She's like a new girl everyday / And all the rest don't bother me / I'm far too busy loving her," he sings. She Makes My Day is the flip side of Heavy Nova's heavy metal track - slow, crooning bossanova that wouldn't be lost on an easy-listening channel.

"What's difficult there," Palmer ponders, "is to avoid cliches, and express a genuine sentiment in a song. It's such thin ice, you risk becoming a holiday lounge act, a Vegas thing. If you're going to sing an overtly sentimental love song, it's such well-trodden ground. When we perform that song live what I enjoy most is seeing the couples in the audience kissing while I'm singing it, it's so real. It's not difficult within rock to avoid cliches because you can apply a sense of humour - but elsewhere, you've got to be your own worst critic."

Robert Palmer doesn't have to be his own worst critic - there are people lining up for the job. But one supposes that for every tongue giving him a lashing there are five more diving pink and squiggly down the throat of their respected loved ones, melting moments in the front row during She Makes My Day. Barry White would understand. Clarence Carter would understand. A lot of black singers would understand. In this respect, Palmer is not alone - he just loves to love you baby, he just wants to dance with somebody, yeah, for you and me the only way is up.

Like many black musicians, too, Palmer also has a great fondness for heavy metal... why? "I like the performing of it, the simplicity and the high energy of it. On this album I made sure that every song worked on the level of guitar and vocals. But any one thing bores me very quickly, and any one style only exhibits one particular mood. My enthusiasms as a listener are broad ranging, and I like to incorporate that in my work."

I heard that you wanted to work with Metallica. "Yes, and I was interested in working with the Scorpions as well. But the thing is, much as it's a nice idea, those guys can't play the rest of the stuff. I need guys who can jump from one thing to another."

One gets the impression that Robert Palmer enjoys a slower tempo. "As far as the rock and roll aspect goes, it's something I find rather vile, it's not my speed. I enjoy civilised people, I'm not one for, uh..."

Metallica guitarists. "No, no, I really, uh, dig the, the musical excesses, but I don't like the behavioural excesses. I find it all boring, it's just kids calling for attention."

Why don't you cover 'Am I Blue' or 'For Sentimental Reasons'? "Well, I was raised on Nat King Cole and Billie Holiday, and recently I've cut 15 tracks of material ranging from things from the '20s to stuff I've written. Since it's the kind of stuff that won't essentially get any airplay, I'm putting it in the form of a musical, a film. It stands a chance of communicating something that way."

Will you be in the film? "Yes, as, um, Robert Palmer, the singer. It's the only role I can play."

Robert Palmer's desire for versality and the admission that he is easily bored are a reasonable response to accusations that he's a dilettante. Is a short attention span useful in the three-minute world of rock?

"It's not that exactly. The question is valid, in terms of digesting the end product I think you're right - with TV and magazines it's flip the pages, flip the channel - but that doesn't mean that the product itself can be throwaway. It requires a team to perform it and if it's a good team they won't sit still for anything that's slipshod. Since I'll do a lot of work before we get into the studio I'll chase away all the red herrings and it'll be fun actually putting the thing down on tape. But that's only half the work. Then you assemble the record and there's a competitiveness in production..."

Despite all this, you still manage to make rock 'n' roll sound very easy. "That's half the point! Recently the BBC did a documentary on Nat King Cole and the guy made it look unbelievably easy. So did Marvin Gaye, he made things look easy. But that's because prior to making it look easy they'd spent 20 years with it being difficult. With the advent of video and a leaning on the disposability of media and marketing, it kills a lot of new talent - new bands don't have time to explore their own musical interests before it's splashed all over showbiz."

How do you handle showbiz? "(very very quietly:) Gingerly." Gingerly? "Yes, with oven gloves."

How do your kids like the new album? "They're not really that interested. It's just something that dad does all the time. If they're watching MTV and I come on they're sort of: 'What the hell are you doing on there?' Remember that song 'We Are The World'? My son was fascinated with that because it was one song, but with lots of different people singing it. Stevie Wonder came on and my son nudged me and said, 'Hey, he sings real good doesn't he?' and I said, 'Yeah, he does'. And Michael Jackson came on and he said, 'He's got a good voice, hasn't he?' and I said, 'Yeah.' And then Bruce Springsteen came on, and my son said, 'What's the matter with him?'"

Sounds like your son's more outspoken than you. "Well, it's a matter of diplomacy. Ask me what I think about U2." What do you think about U2, Robert? "I think they lack talent. Is that outspoken enough for you?"

Yeah, we can put that in big print at the top of the story. "Exactly, you see? You've gotta watch what you say! Give me a headline like that and I'm in deep shit, right? (laughs)"

We'll settle for the 'Robert Palmer Is A Nice Guy' headline, shall we? "Yeah. I mean there's lots of stuff that I really enjoy and I'd rather talk about that, y'know."

What sort of stuff do you enjoy, Robert? "Keith Richards' new album, the Divinyls' latest, old Nat King Cole reissues on CD... and stuff we do in the live show: demos by the Comsat Angels, Husker Du's 'New Day Rising'. That's in a set of the show that's triple-time anyway, so it goes down well. Then we come to a screeching halt and do 'She Makes My Day'."

I guess that about wraps it up. How's the weather where you are? "Glorious."

Robert Palmer has a good tan, and it's getting better.

Chad Taylor (Rip It Up - March 1989)