Words In Motion
Spellbound - Vol IV Iss III
© September 1999

From Bernhard S., Nailsworth, SA, Australia -
How did Iva come to work with John Brand on "Dusty Pages"? My sister bought a great CD when we were in England in '94 by a girl called Jan Johnston who was managed by none other than John Brand. The album is called Naked But For Lilies and it's brilliant - highly recommended!
Iva's answer -
That's a good question. I met him in Japan again on this last Mt. Fuji Rock Festival trip (1998). I met him in a studio. He is managing and has produced a Welsh band (I think they are) called Stereophonics. They just had a number 2… might have been number 1… single in Britain.
I don't exactly know how we ended up with him. I do know that he was involved with Aztec Camera. Maybe he was recommended by Chrysalis.

Stephen C. of Melbourne, VIC submitted to Spellbound his ideas of a discussion of album cover art and the inspirations behind songs. We decided to take this discussion to Iva, but limited the question to encompass only the first album. Here's what Iva had to say, and here's hoping that this will be the first of many installments:
Iva's answer -
The only interesting thing about the first album was, being the first songs I'd ever written, I had no idea what to do. I did keep notebooks and put completely random selections of words into them, which I still have. Things like "Walls" for example, if you wade through the notebook you'll sort of find whole slabs of lyrics. They're distributed all through the whole book. They're just bits. Then I must have, at some point, flicked through and gone, "Oh, that's good," and "I'll stick that bit in." So, in fact, all of "Walls" is there, or lots of it. All completely disjointed. To me, it's actually quite peculiar that it ended up being a reasonably coherent set of lyrics! That was the method then. I don't do things like that at all these days. That was the way the whole of the first album was done. Real cut-up, basically.
Spellbound -
What was behind "Paradise Lost"? Are we hearing you correctly? You only sing the one line. Is it, "You don't scare me, Mr. President?"
Iva -
Could be… (laughter)
Spellbound -
Okay… (laughter) That's actually a topic of discussion on the Internet mailing list. "What is he saying and what's behind this?"
Iva -
Yeah… could be that… could be something else… dunno… don't remember… (laughter)
Spellbound -
You know precisely what it is. You just don't want to tell us!
Iva -
Yeah… and moving to the next subject! (laughter)
Spellbound -
You are rotten! What about the album cover? We know that John Lloyd did it.
Iva -
I think I am probably correct in saying that I suggested this barren thing but I might be wrong, too. This sort of "leafless tree." In some ways, the actual arch, or whatever it is… I can't remember how much detail of the house is in there. It's certainly very reminiscent of where I lived or the style of building. John also lived up the road at that time. That particular suburb has very Victorian type houses. I think the style seems to be in line with that. In a slight way, it does always remind me of that area.