(Q Magazine, October 2007, pages 30-32)
The Blur man dons his white suit and struts down to a former monastery in Oxfordshire to bust some moves with Tony Blair's favourite Bee Gee.
Robin Gibb lives in the sort of abode only a hugely successful pop star would own. The former Bee Gee's pile in the middle of the Oxfordshire countryside was once a school for monks. It resembles one of the more prestigious Oxford colleges, inside and out. There is an ivy-clad gatehouse and a small chapel containing two life-size wooden statues of dogs. Lawns are being mown, roses pruned. Two real dogs, as big as donkeys, bound between pergolas and topiary. Even the sunshine looks smart. It pours in through windows high above my head as I enter the hall. The houses of the absurdly rich often resemble luxury hotels, but this is obviously a home. It's warm and wonderful, littered with instruments and comfy sofas.
As one third of the Bee Gees, the 57-year-old had hits in five decades, a record surpassed only by Cliff Richard and Elvis. The trio ticked the boxes marked "folky troubadours" (with their string of 60s hits) and "go-to songwriters for the stars" (they've penned songs for Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross and Dolly Parton). But it was as falsetto-voiced disco titans that they made their name: 1977's era-defining Saturday Night Fever soundtrack has shifted more than 40 million copies.
Gibb himself looks younger and fitter than I expected. He's as skinny as a saint. He shakes my hand and fixes his gaze on me with calm buoyancy. He's delicate and almost humble, though you'd expect nothing else from someone who hobnobs with everyone from reality TV stars (he's recorded with opera-lite troupe G4 and Fame Academy finalist Alistair Griffin) to politicians (Tony Blair famously holidayed at Gibb's Florida home in December 2006).
Alex James: Hello, Robin. Your manager was explaining that there are ley lines in the garden. What the hell's a ley line?
Robin Gibb: They're supposed to be magical. In the old days, people used to build houses on ley lines. If you go through all the churches in the country, you'll find that they're built on ley lines. I don't know how they find them, but they are apparently there - where the earth's magnetic crust varies. My wife's more into it than me.
AJ: There can't be that many places where you can park a Bee Gee. Why a converted monastery in Oxfordshire?
RG: There's a naturalness about it. You can be yourself here. I like it because it's rural and countrified. I've tried over the years to live in different places. LA and New York are great places to work, but I think as a British person, I can only live here. It's the culture. I still think Britain can drive the world artistically.
AJ: Well, you've not done badly in that respect yourself...
RG: It worries me that there's not much inspiration or encouragement for new songwriters. We are living in the culture of the beauty contest because of all the reality shows, whereas new young musicians are not being signed. It's not where the music business should be. It makes the whole idea of a popular song a sell-out as far as new bands see it. I still think there's room for a cred act to have a popular song. It's not selling out. I had a conversation with John Lennon about that. He only wanted to record singles! It's an art form, the three-minute song that people can sing. There will always be a place for songs that people want to sing. Look at James Blunt...
AJ: Why would I want to do that?!
RG: But that song [You're Beautiful] was everywhere. It could have been written in the 60s, the 70s, any time. It just goes to show that the traditional song is still there. My brothers and I started at a very young age without thinking about whether or not we were going to make money out of it. We used to listen to the radio and say, "Let's imagine what this band's next record will be" and try to write it. We didn't have many friends, but the three of us had a camaraderie. In retrospect it seems like a weird hobby to have had. Our parents didn't understand it. We were a typical, large working-class family, really. Dad had many job, trying to keep a family together. The car would get repossessed. There were no silver spoons.
AJ: Just golden harmonies...
RG: We were singing harmonies without realising it. It was good that we started so young. Kids have blind optimism, but more importantly they're not self-conscious. Self-awareness can be a hindrance. You have to believe that you're better than other people to make any kind of art, but you need heroes as well, for inspiration. I went and knocked on Roy Orbison's door in Nashville when I was only 21. We were Number 1 in America at the time, so I thought, "Use that!" I never learned to read music. The arguments we used to have with orchestras about what was right. Doing Woman In Love with Barbra Streisand in New York we hummed what we wanted the orchestra to do and they said, "You can't do that, it's not right!" But we were always coming from the perspective that if it sounds good, then it is good. It doesn't matter. We had those arguments all the time.
AJ: You've worked with Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross and Dolly Parton. Is there anybody that you haven't worked with that you'd like to?
RG: All the people that I really admire tend to write their own material. I love working with musicians, but I don't hear many acts trying to be the first of something today. I like to see people taking a chance. You see, music goes right to the core. I was talking to Gordon Brown and Tony Blair last week...
AJ: Get you! How did that happen?
RG: Well, Tony's a great guy, a great music fan. I got on very well with him. Gordon Brown's the same. They're big music lovers. As politicians they both see that music is more powerful in crossing divides and breaking down barriers than anything else.
AJ: You've got a chapel in your house. Do you listen to church music?
RG: I've loved church music since I was a kid. There's not that much difference between church music and popular music. Pop is a cross between church music and music hall. I love Mozart, too, more than anything. There are more classical influences around today than ever. Folk music was pivotal in the 60s when we moved back to London. That was where it was at when we started: Dylan.
AJ: It's a long way from folk to disco.
RG: Saturday Night Fever was just another project we were working on. We weren't sure about it at first. We thought it sounded like porn-film music. The film was just a low-budget number about an article in New York magazine called Tribal Rites Of The New Saturday Night, about dance competitions. [Film studio] Paramount asked if we had any songs for it. We'd already recorded Night Fever and Stayin' Alive. We didn't think of it as dance music; we called it "blue-eyed soul". So we said, "We haven't got anything. Sorry." They came and listened anyway and they ummed and aahed. Paramount asked us to change the words of Stayin' Alive to Saturday Night: "Ah, ah, ah, ah, Saturday night, Saturday night". They wanted a girl to sing How Deep Is Your Love. The usual games.
AJ: Was the 70s a blast?
RG: It was as exciting as the 60s. There was an adrenaline that you don't feel today. The music business was still finding its limits.
AJ: Did you know where the limits were?
RG: No.
AJ: Did you try to find them? Were you swinging from chandeliers screaming, "Bollocks! More champagne!"
RG: No, we weren't, actually.
AJ: That's the best bit...
RG: We were more worried about where the next song was coming from. We weren't looking for the music business to give us a good time. We saw it as work. Because we'd been doing it so long, we didn't know how to relax. But it was a great time. Everybody thinks you're in the eye of the storm, but you actually feel like you're on the outside looking in, just like everybody else.
AJ: Your fame was immense. Everybody must have wanted to be your friend.
RG: Not really. We weren't that visible. We weren't doing videos and stuff like that. We never had white suits. That was John Travolta, but it will always be part of that image.
AJ: I've just bought a digger. Have you bought anything ridiculous lately?
RG: I don't really know. I buy property. Er, a house in Kensington?
AJ: That's a "no", then. Do you know the names of all these trees and flowers and stuff?
RG: I love it here. It's a Garden of Eden, but not a lot, no. I just like looking at them.
AJ: Do you paint?
RG: I do paint, and I draw. Landscapes and faces. But I don't buy much art. I write short stories, too; I'm having a collection that I've built up over the last 10 years published in November.
AJ: Back to the chapel. Do you have religious faith?
RG: If I have a religion at all, it's music. That's the thing that grounds me. I find that kind of solace in music.
AJ: Amen.
