Kavus Torabi

“I found myself in a position, through no fault of my own, where this is all I’ve got, and Ram Dass, the spiritual teacher, said you’ve got to see pain as a gift. I had this expression, and it’s far too brainy for me to come up with, but about a year ago I came up with the expression, what’s good for the art is good for the heart, and I thought, that’s amazing, but I looked it up and it was a lyric from like twenty years ago. But it’s been my philosophy ever since.”

I ask him whether he feels proud of the new album, releasing this October on the indie label that Kavus formed in 2009, Believers Roast. 

“I don’t know whether I feel proud about things, but I certainly don’t feel ashamed about them. I’m always very glad when I get things over the line.

“I know people who I think are brilliant creative people and come up with amazing ideas, but they’re not finishers. I’ve sort of learned, doing this all my adult life, that being able to finish something is a particular skill, and it’s one you have to learn. Most artists I know are real perfectionists. For me, the kind of art I’m really interested in, whether it’s animation, or literature, the stuff that really gets to me is the kind of stuff you can tell is the work of an obsession, and someone who has put all of themselves into it. It’s very easy to get caught in the details, and to know when to stand back and say ‘okay, that’s done’.”

Transitioning to a solo artist has brought about more changes than one. Having lived in London for thirty years, Kavus now lives in the country, and that means I am the first person he has spoken to that day: “It’s leading to this work that’s become self-obsessed, but I think in a good way. I can focus on this very specific thing and make a mythology around it without anyone tapping me on the shoulder and saying ‘come on, you’re getting up your own arse a bit’. I’m allowed to get up my own arse a little bit.”

“What really surprised me is how the solo thing blossomed. I started out around 2015 just doing a bit of a turn on acoustic guitar and voice and I lacked any imagination there. I saw (This Heat drummer) Chris Hayward performing solo, and he had all these loops and volume pedals and it taught me what could be done as a solo singer. You’ve got these brilliant finger style Burt Jansch and Richard Thompson types and I thought, there’s no way I’m one of them. But I bought a harmonica and a synth in, and I’ve grown this thing into a more immersive, psychedelic journey, and I knew I had something going on that I could build on.”

“The solo thing, I have to do everything a lot smaller. The gestures are a lot smaller, the music a lot more gentle. I liked, given how tight and incendiary Gong had become, having this thing that was just starting out again, that I had to grow, and I couldn’t see where it was going, and following this concept to wherever it would go.”

Performing every week on YouTube also allows Kavus to give some advice to people who are just starting out: “My skills are pretty rudimentary but I’ll allow them to be out there knowing that in a year later I might be better. If you don’t allow yourself to start out and be a little bit clunky, I don’t think you’ll ever get anything done.”

In 2021, Kavus wrote a joint memoir with Steve Davis called Musical Grade Memories, which was published in 2021 by White Rabbit