Like most musicians of similar artistic status, the daily routine of Al Stewart is physically undemanding; a comfortable apartment, no pressure of time, an afternoon of reading, thinking, playing records, writing songs, then, maybe into his MG sports car, way to a gig and back again the same night. Even the starvation apprenticeship in Paris, which erstwhile involved a daily diet of cornflakes, hardly proved to be physically overpowering.
But instead the last five months have found Al in a state of mental turbulence, exacerbated by the lack of physical activity to shroud it. After two and half years of peaceful cohabitation, Al and his girl friend, Mandi (she appears on the 'Love Chronicles' album sleeve parted company back in October. At that moment the prolific songwriting machine ground to a halt, and as a result Al's new album 'Zero She Flies' is a collection of his earlier, previously unreleased material.
"I haven't written a song since October, and really shouldn't have gone into the studios in November. I just didn't care if I lived or died at the time, and although the album isn't bad, it's very stark. AS you know, my songs tend to expose me quite a lot, and I apologise to any of the people who attended my bad gigs, like the Fairfield Halls [Croydon].
Actually I'm in a more hopeful state of mind now, as two weeks ago Mandi showed up on the doorstep again, and we've been seeing each other since. But I've never felt so totally and utterly defeated before, at least half the songs on the new album were written for Mandi, and it got impossible to sing 'Love Chronicles' which started out as a simple statement and turned into an eighteen minute love song.
"Actually, along with dentists and photo sessions, recordings clam me up most of all as it's impossible to communicate in the studios."
Al Stewart's emotional hangups have not been his only setbacks. He was hoping to tour America, but realised that until his albums were released in the States there was no chance. Says Al: "The copies of 'Love Chronicles' had gone out to the dee-jays, then it was suddenly withdrawn when the heads of Columbia took offence to the word 'f***ing" and 'getting laid.
"This was a personal song which was written for Mandi, and I'm not going to change the lyrics for anything in the world. For the past fifteen months we have kept up an exchange of rude letters, cables, threats and law suits, and the latest thing is that the album is coming out on a small subsidiary label called Date.
"But I've got a lot of faith in the next album, although it's as yet unwritten. I have now recorded absolutely everything I've written and I aim to write the next album pretty fast in April as I've already got the ideas for it. I've stopped taking bookings after the end of June and I aim to go away for three months, and start playing again in October to coincide with the album release."
Al Stewart, who sets and demands a very high standard, was never satisfied with his first album "Bedsitter Images" although it attracted a great deal of interest at the time and opened up fresh horizons for him. "It's amazing how many people think 'Love Chronicles' was the first; but in order to put things right we've remixed the first album which was over-orchestrated. It's now about 500 times better than it ever was, with a different cover, and the words printed on the back.
"It'll be reissued in May under the title 'The First Album (Bedsitter Images)', but it contains some fresh material. I've dropped 'Pretty Golden Hair' which was terrible, 'Scandinavian Girl' which just didn't make it, and 'Cleave to Me' which was rather insipid. The rest of the tracks I still like, and I've added 'Clifton in the Rain' which is about that area of Bristol, and 'Lover Man' which was written by Mike Heron, sung by me and backed by a pretty famous traditional folk/rock band - and it really is pure reggae, man.
Of all the things I've written, 'Manuscript' is the best, and really captures what I'm aiming at; but that simply revolves around a trip Mandi and I made to Worthing. I've also got a single out now - 'Electric Los Angeles Sunset' - but I doubt whether it'll sell, as it isn't being driven into the nation's ears by such worthies as Jimmy Young."
Al returned to the more serious aspect of his songwriting, and the harshness of the situation he now finds himself in. "I gave all the money from that Croydon gig to Oxfam" he added with a wry grin. "I couldn't accept any money after that performance. I think that up until now I'd assumed that we would always be together, and I think my songs have tended to oversimplify the relationship between male and female. I'm not sure, but I think that in future my songs will bring out some of the more complicated aspects in a relationship."
As if his personal worries, weren't sufficient, Al Stewart is a kind of mute prophet of doom and decay - mute because he would sooner write love songs than songs of violence because he enjoys being in love. Nevertheless his awareness of the American situation and its connotations are revealed in the violent 'Electric Los Angeles Sunset' when he observed that "the buildings are choking on oxygen fumes." Here his feelings on America, pollution and the insanity of modern living are wrapped up in concise verbal innuendo. He speaks freely and willingly about his dogma which is the result of great eclecticism and a mature prescience.
"The way things are evolving doesn't exactly worry me, but it involves me increasingly. I regard singing in front of audiences merely as a an apprenticeship, and I'm not fooling myself by making records because it leaves me a lot of time to read, think and absorb. I enjoy talking to an audience but I am a musician and I go out there to entertain.
"I don't want to lead anything and I haven't got the brain power for deciding what's got to be done. But instead of leading purely a hedonistic life, I'd like to use my energies for the good - for the survival of this planet. I shall probably end up as part of a political conservation group, but at the moment I'm still reading and learning at a rapid rate."
Al escapes from his complete state of ambivalence over material possessions, claiming that he wouldn't be at all hung up if they disappeared tomorrow. At the same time he recognises the value of status in a case of crisis as he has already testified, and the material belongings which inevitably accompany this are virtually irreconcilable.
"If you have any kind of capability, then you must have a responsibility. For instance in a few years time it could be better to grow a cabbage than make a record. For me, it's not a case of what I can get out of the world via Mandi, so much as what I can put into it via whatever.
"I try to write songs that everyone can identify themselves with, but if I want to do anything for posterity, it certainly won't be in the fields of the arts, it'll be where it matters."
Al's attitude suddenly changed dramatically from the sagacious soothsayer to the subservient as we sat drinking coffee. "Could you possibly add a postscript? You see when I said I wanted to go away from July until October, well, I've really nowhere at all to go, and if anyone wants one more person to make up a party or something ... someone with a guitar and a sunhat ... I mean I really would like to go along ... "