“I THINK I was probably quite lucky in having bestowed on me the gifts of curiosity, nosiness, energy and enthusiasm. And I think if you’ve got those qualities, they’re pretty good allies for an eventful life.”
Coming from most people, such words could easily be dismissed as egotistical hyperbole – but from DJ and journalist Andy Kershaw, they’re probably an understatement if anything.
The outspoken broadcasting legend, who is making two appearances in the Observer area this year, has packed his 52 years with enough experience and adventure to fill a dozen lifetimes.
After leaving the University of Leeds, where as entertainments secretary he booked names like Iggy Pop, The Clash and Ian Dury, he swiftly rose to become one of the most respected music presenters on radio and TV. And as if having his own slots on BBC Radio 1 and later Radio 3 weren’t enough, Andy has reported from some of the world’s most dangerous warzones and under the most repressive regimes as Radio 4’s foreign correspondent.
This year, he’s taking a break from risking life and limb to tour the UK with new show The Adventures of Andy Kershaw, which follows the recent release of his aptly-titled autobiography No Off Switch.
The show will see him share his incredible life story at more than 30 venues in two months, including High Barn and Bishop’s Stortford’s Rhodes. However, while this autumn will see Andy in a more reflective mood than usual, he’s adamant his exploits are only just beginning.
He said: “I inherited an insatiable nosiness and boundless energy from my mum and dad – I don’t feel any older now than I did in my late 20s. If people think I’ve found the ‘off switch’ now I’ve written the book, let me tell you: I’ve only just discovered the turbo button!
“There’s no way I’m slowing down, if I wasn’t doing all the publicity for the tour – which are hugely enjoyable in themselves, don’t get me wrong – I’d be out there in the Middle East trying to find the Free Syrian Army and sneaking into Syria with them.”
Despite his uncompromising and wildly extrovert nature, Andy didn’t emerge from his shell until his second year at university, where his student union role emboldened him to start pushing his own boundaries.
He said: “It was a huge jump and was most uncharacteristic of me, because until I became the boss of entertainments I’d actually been a very, very shy kid and didn’t realise I had the flair for leadership. Those qualities were drawn out of me by a couple of friends.
“It was an extraordinary thing to be doing. I’d wake up in the mornings staring at the ceiling and thinking: ‘Oh God, I’ve got Iggy Pop coming tonight!’”
While working as Billy Bragg’s roadie in 1984, Andy was invited to present the BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test. He joined Radio 1 a year later, where he was given total freedom to play the music he wanted. Not wanting to be constrained by the major labels’ offerings, he travelled far and wide to seek out new sounds.
He said: “What I find most astonishing, looking back on it, is that I was the first person in Radio 1’s history who’d ever bothered to pack up a recording device and set off around the world to record music.
“It wasn’t always what came to be known as ‘world music’, but I’d go off and record blues singers or Cajun musicians in rural Louisiana and stuff like that. No-one had even done that before – and why not? It was dead easy.”
To the casual observer, Andy’s forays into current affairs might seem an unusual career step from being a DJ. However, he argued, the two roles aren’t all that different.
“I’ve never been passive about anything, not least about music – but again, it comes down to nosiness,” he explained.
“Wanting to know what goes on in North Korea isn’t a particularly different impulse from wanting to know more about the different music of the world. I didn’t see it as a big career shift, because I knew long before any of this radio and TV nonsense that I instinctively thought like a journalist. I started writing for my local newspaper and motorcycling magazines when I was 15.”
A passionate defender of quality journalism, he rails angrily against Western attitudes to Arabic news channel Al Jazeera – a station which, he boldly states, “makes the BBC look embarassing”.
He said: “It’s just typical dimwit, gormless American reflex hostility to anything that happens to originate in the Middle East to them, it must obviously be al-Qaeda’s rolling news!
“I got into reporting because, at the time, the world was going through the most dramatic upheaval since the 1960s. I wanted to be an eyewitness to that history in the making – and I still do. I [want] to give people some kind of insight into what these places are like.
“There have been some horrid sights but the worst were in Rwanda [during the bloody civil war of 1994, in which an estimated 800,000 people died] – it was horrific, revolting and just appalling.
“But though I don’t want to sound callous, in professional terms it was probably the easiest job, all I had to do was describe into the microphone what was in front of me. It spoke for itself.”
For a man whose record collection weighs seven tons, and who has been at the cutting edge of music for three decades, one imagines the rise of the internet and its impact on the industry would be cause for consternation.
But he said: “I’ve no sentimentality about the demise of major record companies. I’d feel sentimental about the loss of more pioneering, innovative and independent labels, and to that extent I lament the loss of records because they’re an artefact you can treasure.
“I’m a vinyl man and have been since I was 12 years old, but you can’t stop technology or put genies back in bottles.
“As long as the people making music are getting their fair reward through all this new media, then fair enough. I do still value the opportunity to spend an hour or two rummaging in a record shop – there’s nothing quite like it.”
The Adventures of Andy Kershaw: An Evening With the Legendary Broadcaster and Foreign Correspondent at High Barn and Rhodes has been postponed until this autumn. New dates will be announced soon - keep an eye on the Observer website.
