Carol Decker, Tpau Interview - Lets Rock Leeds, dodgy venues and spiked tea..

Firstly how are you, you had a nasty bout of bronchitis earlier in the year, are you now fully recovered?

I hope so, I haven’t actually sung yet apart from a few vocal lessons, I feel well so… I had flu and bronchitis, then a fractured ankle, I was hobbling about with a sore foot, turns out it was a fractured ankle. I had the flu jab but as reported in the news that failed… 

I was trying to keep going as we were gigging Thursday Friday Saturday and Sunday, with Monday to Wednesday to rest so kept thinking I will be ok  but it just developed into bronchitis and my vocal chords completely swelled up. The tour got called off…

Yeah we had tickets for ages for the Wakefield show and it just kept getting cancelled so we have been taking a keener interest that normal in your health!

Oh very sorry, yeah Wakefield was a casualty, that was the day, I got in the tour bus that morning, thinking lots of herbal teas, lots of gargling and I will be ok but I just couldn’t sing a note. Doctors told me to stop but I am always the last one to call anything off. In a 30 odd year career only had to call off a handful of shows so that’s not bad going..


So with Pleasure and Pain (the new album) now having been out a few months, how do you view it, did it achieve what you wanted and expected.

It achieved more…well it didn’t achieve what I wanted because selling records is so hard now and if you aren’t a front line artist it’s very hard. 

Artistically I am very proud of it and it achieved more than we expected, it was the most wished for on amazon and was very well received and reviewed. And although it didn’t get playlisted on national radio, we got some very good spot plays from Graham Norton, Terry Wogan and Ken Bruce, that was really helpful and this week it gets released in HMV in Canada. 

The new T'Pau album 'Pleasure & Pain'. 

Its available to download via: iTunes or 

purchase the CD on Amazon.co.uk 

or HMV Canada

On the one hand, it achieved more than we expected but it’s frustrating we can get it the attention it deserves sometimes.

I see it as laziness on the part of DJs sometimes, they are quite happy to play China in Your Hand or Heart and Soul, but I think if you actually listen to the new album, the audience would also like something like Misbelieving (from Pleasure and Pain), I think One Lesson in Love would resonate with a younger audience 

Thank you because yes I agree with you, its easy to become marginalised as just an 80s act and yes we do all the 80s festivals and why wouldn’t I, they are great fun but its almost digging your own grave, that’s where you belong and you don’t have anything to say.

I love the festival season, I usually have a nice place on the bill, there is not too much pressure, no stress of closing the show, the audiences are really appreciative, I can usually rock up with the kids, say hello to the bands backstage, have a glass of plonk, its all very nice.  These were all our chart rivals back in the day, young, arrogant and  ambitious but we are all in our 50s now, most of us have had births marriages divorces, we have experience life. I don’t mean to sound mushy but it really is convivial backstage with these bands, its warm and supportive. 

Yeah one of the photos we took at rewind the other year, was Peter from Go West making Nik Kershaw a cup of tea. Rock and Roll!

Ha , that would never been in smash hits back in the day, unless he was spiking it!

Phil from The Human League makes no secret that he doesn’t really seem themselves as retro, it’s a means to an end, doing these shows means he might be able to do a new album..

Lets Rock Leeds Tickets

I don’t see it that way, I really enjoy it, I am not embarrassed by our hits or my past, it frustrates me if I only get to sing a couple of songs as sometimes happens but I do enjoy signing them, as I said I enjoy festivals like Lets Rock Leeds even if only on a social level. I dont know Phil very well, I do like them, always enjoy their set, I am glued to them when they play but maybe they just don’t get what I get out of it. They do roll up in the big bus thing and keep themselves to themselves whereas I enjoy hooking up with my pals but he is entitled to feel the way he does.


In terms of Lets Rock Leeds, the big interest there is Tom Bailey from the Thompson Twins

OH YES! I loved the Thompson twins, I supported them a few timesin America in the 80s, I was in such awe. It will be great to hear those songs again, but Tom, again he was one that said he would never do those songs again so something changed. It’s just a festival, try not to do your head in ”oh I am just a blast from the past”, just go out and enjoy it. 
Sometimes it can be frustrating, sometimes I feel like Vera Lynn getting wheeled out to sing We’ll Meet Again or something…I know though you can say, 27 years after it was No1 people still want to hear it and I am very proud of that.

Listening then to how you view these festivals, that explains why when you perform you don’t tinker with those songs…

No its as they were generally, I do acoustic version sometimes (See Tpau perform China acoustically below) but no there wont be a hip hop version of China, that’s not really what I do..

So you are in Leeds this summer, what recollections do you have of playing the city.

Lets Rock Leeds of course the big outdoor show  this summer and I supported Bryan Adams back in 1988 and our 25th anniversary tour we were at the Varieties, a beautiful venue, breathtaking. When we were there we went down to where The Queens Hall had been. I tweeted from the Car Park where it used to stand saying this is where I played..

It was an awful venue..

Dates and Tickets

It was a shit hole! Sticky floors but great atmosphere. Funny enough the best show on the Pleasure and Pain show was in Chester, I was so bad tempered. My dog has a nicer room than my dressing room. No toilets, and breeze blocks holding the table up, just basic human requirements is all I ask, I mean I am not Jlo, but I think I deserve a toilet! That said it was one of the best shows, we got great reviews and we tore the roof off.

So once festival season is out of the way. Whats next for Carol Decker and Tpau

We are doing a 30 date theatre tour with Nik Kershaw and Go West, I got asked to be special guest, I have known them both for 30 years and Nik, well I had the chance to open for him back in the day, he was one of the big hitters of his day and it was really important step up and I owe him a lot. I am really looking forward to that.

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