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Was there a conscious moment when you realized you were an artist?

Yes, there was one really significant moment when I realized it. I was at the Royal Academy of Music studying flute, and I was a dreadful player. I didn't want to wake shortly to realize that I was going to end up in some provincial school for 12 years.

I come from working-class stock, and I was brought up with a strong work ethos. I thought I'd already blown my one opportunity, as it were, which was to get into the academy. I thought I was going back to the factory -- the one I was told about as soon as I came out of the womb.

I never would have expected my parents to give me a penny, and they couldn't anyway. So I supported myself: I worked in a book shop, I waited tables, and I tried to figure out who I was. The real turning point for me was about the time I was at the academy.

In fact, you quit three days before your final exams.

That's right; I just stopped. I didn't even show up for any history or music lectures. It was so mad. They didn't even know I was there. I didn't want to be there. I lived in London, in a series of bedsits. Notting Hill Gate was exceedingly funky, and I met this guy called Steve in a book shop I worked in. He had this fantastic record collection, and basically, I just got exposed to the albums that he had. There were two very significant albums in this record collection. One was Talking Book by Stevie Wonder. I just kind of identified with that and that extraordinary voice, and then I listened to Joni Mitchell and it was, like, "Whoa." So I was really a hybrid between Stevie Wonder and Joni Mitchell, walking the streets as a singer/songwriter, but nobody knew it but me. That's mad, isn't it?

But you developed that inner belief that you have to have in yourself.

It's very odd, but you do have to have that. At the time you think you're a loser. Everybody thinks they're a loser; they think there's no chance. There are so many people out there who want to do this, whatever your ambition is. I didn't have an ambition for fame or money -- it had nothing to do with that. It was on a spiritual and soul level; I was on a mission.

Your life changed again in 1976, when you met a very disheveled Dave Stewart after your friend brought him into the restaurant where you were waitressing. Was the connection instant?

He was a bit shambolic [Laughs]. He was going through a rough time in his life. I could see he was a very special person. Everybody surely in life has had the occasion where we've met one individual -- maybe if we're fortunate we meet a few -- and we just feel connected. I think artists, particularly, understand what that is all about. The artist is the one who's out there, immersed in the world of imagination and perception and questioning. So very often, you can feel like you're the only one on the planet. So if you meet a like mind, you feel immensely gratified: "My God, there are two of us on the planet." So that was the feeling.

How soon after you met at the restaurant did you start writing?

I met him one night, and he came and visited the restaurant. I lived in this little bedsit in Camden Town and I had a harmonium, and wherever I moved, the harmonium went with me. I loved it and I wrote on it, and, God, talk about giving yourself a bit of baggage [Laughs]. The reason why I got to meet up with David in the first place was I told a friend of mine that I was writing songs and I'd been offered a publishing deal of some sort, a really slippery deal. And a part of my brain was saying, "Don't sign the paper," and [my friend] said, "You must meet my friend, because I think he knows a bit about this." And it was Dave.

And you didn't sign the paper.

Noooo. Tore it up and threw it away. And said, "Whoa, we were meant to meet each other, that's right." "Yeah, you write songs. Well, I write songs." We were writing within days, but we were scalawags. Everything Dave had, he had in two plastic bags. I think he still had a guitar, but all the other things he had were in those two bags.

Along with Peet Coombes, you and Dave formed the Tourists and got signed to Logo Records.

At the time we got that first record deal, I was sitting next to Dave [in the Logo Records office]. They said, "We're quite happy to give you an advance." I think it was around ?3,000. Whatever it was, we thought, "We can't be doing too badly." At the time, to be honest, it was jaw-dropping stuff for me. So I just said, foolishly, "I'm not in it for the money." And Dave crushed my foot under the table. So na?ve. I'm still na?ve, and I celebrate my na?v?t?, actually.

But you're still not in it for the money.

But I'll take it, though. I'll earn it and put it in the bank account.

Were you writing much for the Tourists?

Peet Coombes, who's dead now, was a very, very prolific songwriter and took copious amounts of speed. One of the things it does to people is make them think [they] are incredibly intelligent and make [them] write songs that are incredibly fast. And that's what he did.

Peet became the main songwriter. I didn't co-write with Peet. He and Dave had more of a collaborative thing. I was like the singer.

I remember the punk era was just starting to happen. It was almost an overnight event. We got rid of all our flared jeans, which I am wearing now, but I wouldn't be seen dead in them then. We made them all drainpiped, we all went to second-hand clothes shops, dyed our hair luminous colors, and you know, had a bit of a tougher attitude, to be honest with you.

But the Tourists' music wasn't punk.

That was the thing, because the music was kind of... we were very confused, let's face it. The thing is, I think, basically, it was all a mistake. We should have never formed that band. And unfortunately, we had a hit record. It's fortunate and unfortunate. We got a hit with a cover version that was supposed to be deeply ironic, but no one really understood that but us. It was a song by Dusty Springfield called "I Only Want to Be With You," and it marched itself up to No. 4 on the [U.K.] charts. And on the back of that, I think we confused people even more. In those days it looked like we were selling out, and those issues were very important at the time. And so off we went, feeling a little strange about ourselves.

I really see my coming out of the egg when the Tourists broke up. I think I had all my learning experience there, and then we knew what we didn't want to be.

You and Dave wrote a manifesto when you formed Eurythmics. What was in it?

I don't remember now, but I think it was what we were and what we weren't. Because we'd been through such a lot. At the end of the Tourists, we were on our way to make a tour of Australia, and Peet came to us and said, "I don't want to do this anymore." We were just sort of limping off to Australia minus him.

So there we were in Australia, and it was a very cathartic moment, because it was basically down to the two of us. But we, the band, were left with the debt. That was the other thing: Everyone else had made a fortune but the band. The management company got 20% of the gross, the agents -- everybody -- and we were still in debt, you know.

Let's talk about "In the Garden," the first album from Eurythmics.

We worked with [producer] Conny Plank. He was in Cologne in Germany, and he was obsessed with electronic [equipment]. We weren't there yet with that record. We thought we'd cracked it, but we didn't. In the Garden was our little experimental moment.

By then you were on RCA, and the label wanted to drop you after this album, right?

Oh, I'm sure they would have wanted to. With a name like Eurythmics, I mean, any label worth their grain of salt would. They didn't know what to do with us, because we came back and said -- we were very clear -- "This is what we're called. This is what we want to do."

We were down at the bottom of the pile, let's put it like that, and understandably so -- because until a thing has been proven, no one really knows, and who's going to give you that time? Record companies always look for the formula that works, and artists are looking forward. They're weird bedfellows quite often.

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