Advertisement

Anything but a failure

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0

WHEN Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn formed Everything But The Girl back in 1984, they never thought they had a career in prospect. But it seems they, in Watt's words, must be doing something right because, a decade later, the British duo is still going strong with their eighth album Amplified Heart hot on the Hong Kong shelves this week.

Yet, barely two years ago, the duo's future looked seriously threatened when Watt, who composes the majority of the songs, was suddenly struck by a rare life-threatening disease identified as the Chung Strauss Syndrome, which involves an abnormality in the auto-immune system in which the body attacks its own connective tissues.

It left him bed-ridden in hospital for three months and it was another three before he was ready to get back into the studio again.

''I'm much better now,'' Watt said in a telephone interview from London. ''But it's a long-term recovery really. I have a lot of strength; I'm working non-stop and enjoying life again. But I think it's something that people have to keep looking out for.'' While it has not incapacitated him - or the duo - any, it is obvious from recent photographs and the album cover that Watt is a much more gaunt figure than his former self.

''I am much thinner,'' Watt admitted. ''I have a problem with what I eat and I'm on a really small diet at the moment. But it doesn't seem to affect my work, the promotion and stuff. People just keep expecting me to fall over!'' Amplified Heart marks a return to basics with Everything But The Girl's original no-frills, folksy influence after a two-album foray into the sophisticated studio mixing.

''Our last two albums, Language of Life and Worldwide had high production value; they were very much studio records,'' Watt said.

Advertisement
Select Voice
Choose your listening speed
Get through articles 2-3x faster
1.1x
220 WPM
Slow
Normal
Fast
1.1x