“I don’t dwell on the past” AN AUDIENCE WITH TODD RUNDGREN

“I am open to doing almost anything stylistically – except for country music”

EVEN before the pandemic hit, Todd Rundgren was adept at working remotely. 2017’s White Knight and its imminent follow-up Space Force feature a typically eclectic array of collaborators – from Trent Reznor to The Roots – but Rundgren doesn’t generally expect them to drop by his home studio, given that he lives on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, a 100-mile hop from the capital Honolulu. “The lifestyle is extremely laidback,” he admits via Zoom. “A lot of people move here because of how idyllic it is, and then a year later they move again because they can’t slow down enough…”

Among the things Rundgren likes most about Hawaii is that it’s “probably one of the most polyglot cultures on the planet”, which makes sense for an artist who speaks multiple musical languages: power pop, prog, blue-eyed soul, electronica… and even, on his impressive new singlereader questions for him range all over the place, Rundgren simply grins and says, “So do I!”