Interview: Kim Carnes on 'Bette Davis Eyes' (Countdown Australia, 1981)

Kim, welcome to England, welcome to Countdown, and congratulations on the number one hit you've just had in America.

Thank you, it feels good. At last!

The song, 'Bette Davis Eyes', is going up the charts in Australia as well. How did you come by the song?

I heard the song first about a year ago, the producer of my last album played it for me. We had finished recording that album and needed to get it out, so we couldn't go in and do it. So eight or nine months later when I started rehearsing for this album, Donna Weiss who wrote the lyrics for the song called me up and reminded me of the song. We got a demo over to the house quickly, I took it to  Val Garay, my producer. He loved it, my band freaked for it. We worked it up that day, recorded it a couple of days later.

Lots of people think you sounded like Rod Stewart on the track.

I've gotten that for six albums now. Fortunately I'm a huge fan of his, I think he's great, so if I wasn't, it'd be trouble, but I am. I always take it as a compliment.

You also had a very big hit last year in America duetting with Kenny Rogers.

Yeah, 'Don't Fall in Love with a Dreamer' was off an album that Dave Ellingson, my husband, and I wrote for Kenny. An album called Gideon. That was kind of a unique situation for a writer, a chance that doesn't come along these days real often for someone who sells as many records as Kenny, to come to us and say he would like a concept album. He wanted  to be a particular character, a cowboy, and would we like to take a shot at writing it for him, and the duet came out of it.

Is that your first essay into country music?

Absolutely.

Even on this new album of yours, Mistaken Identity, you've got a couple of country-sounding tracks, don't you think?

I don't know, they're not meant to be! It's the first time I've done an album live in a studio, I've always wanted to, and I'll never do it any other way. It's so much better, it has the advantage of being able to rehearse and try a song a million different ways, rather than making your album, and six months later looking back and saying "why didn't we try that song this way?" The spontaneity, coming from all the players, and for sure, vocals - you get a whole different attitude singing live, like on the road, on the stage. You're in the same room with the band, you don't think about what you're singing, you just sing and take a lot more chance. It has a life to it that I don't think happens when you overdub, and it can become very sterile and polished. This is, for me, by far the best way to do it.

You've got a great voice. Do you do anything special to get to sing like that, like gargle with sand every morning?

Gravel.

Interview by Cherry Ripe for Countdown Australia, June 28, 1981.