Bill Nelson is not your average guitar hero. Looking at his extensive back catalogue – from the early solo work, through Be-Bop Deluxe, Red Noise and beyond – shows an artist who maintains a youthful sense of curiosity and a disregard for the categories that can become a creative straitjacket for many. Bill operates outside the mainstream, in a similar way to Jeff Beck or Mike Oldfield in having all the instrumental skills you could wish for but seeking to use these purely for musical expression, rather than as an end in itself. Collaborations with artists such as David Sylvian, Gary Numan, the Skids and Yellow Magic Orchestra, to name just a few, further demonstrate this.
Since 2000, Bill has released an impressive number of albums on his own label, the latest being 2023’s Starlight Stories, and he’s also currently putting the finishing touches to a three-album project under the umbrella title of Guitars Of Tomorrow.
Is it true that your latest album, Starlight Stories, was inspired by books from your childhood?
“Well, I’m a ‘certain age’, 76 this year, and you tend to start looking back. I often go back to my youth or childhood and find things that inspired me then that can translate
