Alan Wilder talks to Home – warms up to screening in Copenhagen

This coming Saturday, Alan Wilder will be screening his live Recoil film “A Strange Hour In Budapest”, in Copenhagen followed by a Q&A. Demand for tickets was so immense that shortly after tickets were released, a second screening was added on the same day. To warm up for this event (for which a very limited number of tickets has just been made available), HOME caught up with Alan, to ask him four quick questions.

Last minute tickets to the Recoil screenings in Copenhagen, this coming Saturday, are available from empirebio.dk.

We’d originally planned to run a previous interview with Alan, and simply update it with a few new questions to make it more current. But in a typical Wilderesque move, Alan went above and beyond when answering our questions, and so we ended up with what we felt warranted a post all on it’s own… based on just four questions! So thank you, Alan, for being so generous with your time!

P2: As this screening tour is winding down, how has it been touring with a film, rather than the show?

AW: It feels like venturing slightly into the unknown, something I’ve never really done before – and it takes a little more effort to get people out to a cinema compared to a live show. But I have to say, the response has been amazing so far, which is why we keep adding more events with additional screenings. Initially I planned maybe 5 or 6 in total just for a little profile for the film – but as the idea has progressed, more and more requests from promoters (and fans alike) have come in to stage premieres in their respective cities, so it makes sense to me to add further events. In fact, just as with the film production itself, the fans have also driven some of the events, insisting that I allow them to organise, as in Santiago last weekend for example. Feels so good to know I have such loyal support. In fact, we are about to set another event into motion, also fan-led, in Buenos Aires.

I get goose bumps every time I see my own film in a cinema – something of a big-screen dream as I’m such a fan of the movie experience anyway. I believe interest generally in large screen HD digital entertainment has increased in recent years.

P2: What’s been the most surprising aspect of meeting your fans in a Q&A type setting?

AW: I try to keep the Q & A sessions as relaxed as possible and not place too much pressure on myself to ‘talk’. So it’s largely spontaneous and I tell myself to just enjoy the chat and react naturally to any questions, keep people feeling comfortable in that environment and not get too po-faced or pretentious about the whole thing. It should be, above all, fun.

Re the q’s themselves – not too many surprises so far. Most questions tend to be similar in each city. A bit too much emphasis on DM which can be tedious for me but, at the same time, I have always recognised my past and the good fortune it has brought me. I never forget how lucky I am to be able to work at what I most enjoy doing in this life. Also, the film does feature musical excerpts outside of strictly Recoil material – it is more about what Alan Wilder does, hence the inclusion of a few DM moments – so I can’t be too surprised if I get questions relating to my past.

P2: What questions would you rather not have to answer ever again?

AW: “What music do you listen to?” (I have 160GB of music on my laptop and can never think of one piece to mention when I get asked this question!! – my mind just goes blank). And… of course… ” Are you going to re-join a certain quite well-known group?”

P2: You’ll be doing a special Talk Talk event in Copenhagen – can you tell us a little bit about this?

AW: My intention is to approach the talk & chat in a very similar way to the Recoil sessions where we keep it entertaining and fun. I’m not there to go on about my own project and I certainly do not consider myself an authority or expert on Talk Talk. I don’t even know any of the members or producers personally. I was asked to take part in the whole ‘Spirit of Talk Talk’ project and the involvement grew, so I want to explain how that happened and just try to articulate what their music means to me as a musician, and perhaps suggest why it touched so many others too. I am a fan – that’s it.

I have a special guest to introduce who was involved in the album too. There will also be some new films (made for the tribute project), some older Talk Talk videos, plus James Marsh art animations & images. And we will have some ‘Spirit’ books & CDs for sale. I’m not sure there is much distribution set up in Denmark so this is a really good opportunity to pick up the products without incurring a load of unnecessary shipping charges from the UK.

HOME would like to thank Alan, Jeannie, Brit and PeddePop.