June
1997 edition of Gay Times
RICHARD SMITH's
The Survivor
For more than a decade, NEIL TENNANT of the Pet Shop Boys specializes in
being enigmatic, but now he thinks it's a bit pathetic not to be honest
INTERVIEW
BY RICHARD SMITH
SO WE DO LUNCH. I'm a bit nervous but Neil Tennant's relaxed. He's also
clearly very happy these days. And very forthcoming. He says "the
best interviews are when people let you talk properly." I make a
mental note.
As
an aperitif we talk at some length about the current state of pop. ("Irony
has been the most over used pop currency of the 1990's." Don't you
think that's your fault? "I do...").
For
our starters we discuss five things that seem to interconnect. First,
the Pet Shop Boys forthcoming run of live shows at The Savoy Theater ("When
you've been making records like we have for however many years, you have
the urge to try and explore different things - it's always been a sort
of ambition to do something in a theater in the West End").
Second,
the album of covers of Noel Coward songs he's helping to coordinate ("We're
trying to get singers from the last four generations of pop music who
are theatrical or stylish or distinctly British in the tradition of Noel
Coward.")
Third,
his love of musicals ("When I was nine years old I wrote a musical
with a girl at school called The Girl Who Pulled Tails. We just made up
songs in our heads and sang them. I've always been fascinated by musicals.
It's the way people burst into song that gives the show an incredible
emotional content - it does something that a play doesn't do. It has an
extra layer of involvement.")
Four,
the planned "play with music" they're working on with Jonathan
Harvey ("I've always wanted to do a musical that's about contemporary
life with contemporary music. And at the same time our music people say
it has a theatrical quality - whatever that mean. It's a bit camp or something.")
And
five, their new single - a cover of Somewhere from West Side Story - a
sort of prequel to Go West ("It's actually the same thing - it's
one of those songs about escape and romantic longing which we always like.").
Next
comes the entree where I get Neil to trace his autobiography through the
pop music he loved - from The Beatles through Bowie and Blondy to Boy
George and Boystown. Now it's time for the main course. We talk about
the 12 years that have taken the Pet Shop Boys from West End Girls to
West Side Story. Let's start at the beginning. The official story is that
the Pet Shop Boys just wanted to make a record with Bobby O and have it
available on the import rack of Record Shack. Surely you had loftier ambitions
than that? You wanted to be a pop star didn't you?
"At that point it wasn't a motive. When I met Chris I was 27 years
old and I thought I'm just too old for this now, When we made the record
with Bobby O, I was nearly 30 I think. So no, we wanted to make a cult dance
record, that we were obsessed by in those days. I didn't want to be in a
Culture Club kind of group, it wasn't what we were doing. It wasn't my inspiration.
And also I used to meet these people when I was interviewing them and I
was older than them all. So us becoming huge pop stars was never in the
equation at all at the start. But when we signed to EMI we got more confident
about the whole thing. Suddenly we thought we were on to something, we were
doing something that no-one else was doing - which we sort of were. The
trouble is, as soon as we started doing things we became interested in them.
And then when you have a hit like West End Girls was, you suddenly go mainstream.
And 'cause we were on EMI, we were obviously going to be marketed as pop
stars. At some point we reconciled ourselves to that fact."
"But even that, we were trying to do differently, because there was
a way of behaving and presenting yourself if you made pop music in the mid-Eighties
which we don't want to do. If you look at Top of the Pops reruns on Sky
Gold it's all 'Life's a party!' And the Pet Shop Boys have never been about
'life's a party'. Maybe we're more about that now than we used to be but
we certainly weren't 12 years ago. We wanted to have our publicity stills
like stills from movies, and we knew on television we were just gonna stand
there and we weren't gonna wink at the camera a jump up and down 'cause
ultimately we couldn't do any of that anyway. We wanted to do it in a way
where we could still have a kind of dignity. We didn't want to make complete
parts of ourselves. And by 1985 you had to make a bit of a prat of yourself
to be a pop star."
Am
I right in thinking that one of the most important lessons you learnt
when you were working at Smash Hits was how stars so easily got created
and destroyed in the tabloids?
"Yes. We never wanted to do the tabloids, and all those groups came
up on the tabloids. It was Adam Ant that started that, his famous quote
that he became too successful because he was supported by the tabloids and
Smash Hits. He did it without the NME. We had Smash Hits on our side. We
had television and radio I suppose. And ultimately we wanted to remain enigmatic.
Because we knew it would make us appear more interesting than we considered
ourselves to be."
But
you told NME in 1986 that there was "no clever ploy to appear mysterious".
"Well the ploy was not to do too many interviews. In fact, having said
that, we used to talk to Smash Hits every bloody week at that point. And
of course the whole of the enigma was being gay."
How
do you mean?
"It was one of those 'are they or aren't they' things you get in a
mainstream pop artist - which is a great thing. It's a very powerful thing
when everybody speculates about which is the gay one. Is it Robbie or Jason
or Mark? Even though they're all straight in fact. Is Keanu Reeves gay?
It gives a resonance and interest that's otherwise lacking. And I can't
help feeling that I am slightly less interesting a figure since I announced
I was gay. In a way. Mind you, having said that, it's a bit pathetic when
you're a certain age and you're not being honest about what you're about."
Your
time at Smash Hits also saw the appearance of the first out gay pop star.
"Oh yeah, I used to put Bronski Beat on the covers of Smash Hits. But
they were doing a different thing. Jimi was a political activist before
he was a musician. He discovered he could sing because he was a gay activist."
But
in 1984, 1985 didn't it seem that the thing to do was not be enigmatic
but make a declaration?
"It didn't, actually. Not really. Boy George never made a statement
about it. Not when Culture Club were hugely popular. He said he was bisexual.
Bronski Beat did, but in Smash Hits terms that was their angle. 'They're
gay!' They were representing a kind of idealism, which was wonderful. Again
it's not the kind ideas we would ever have represented - in those days."
You
say it was quite carefully structured, you were trying to avoid being
tabloid fodder...
I didn't say it was carefully structured. A lot of it's just... it's instinct
isn't it? You're in it, you're doing that, you know what you're not gonna
do. And also you're only talking to half the group here. And Chris is at
least 50 per cent of what the Pet Shop Boys do. The way we presented ourselves
has been entirely governed by Chris really. It could have gone a different
way if it had been me and someone else. And then also, once you start doing
something and it kind of works, then you just kind of go with it. You have
your act - 'this is what we do'. And then of course you get bored with it
after while... but you get used to seeing yourself and you think 'well that's
what we do isn't it? That's us! (laughs) By the early Nineties we were very
bored with it."
Why?
"We used to be on the television such a lot. You get bored with the
way you look on it. So you either decide not to do it anymore or you change
the way you do it. I had to change. It's why we did our whole pointy hat
thing - we thought we looked tired. We did. Really"
I
think a lot of people found it strange that you've said you were quite
unsure of your sexuality up to the Nineties. Your songs seemed so certain.
"I said I didn't really have a practicing sex life when we were successful
in the Eighties - which was the case. I didn't not have a sex life at all,
but I didn't have much of a sex life then. And the reason I became more
secure about all that - when I say secure, I wasn't insecure about it -
but the reason I was able to say something about it was, in the Nineties,
I met someone and fell in love with him. We lived together... and it all
broke up eventually. And then I went into another long affair with somebody
which has only recently finished. I had something to talk about (laughs).
ln the Eighties, although I knew I was gay it was reasonably theoretical."
The
song Metamorphosis implies you were struggling or in denial.
"No, I was sure what I was. I've just never been physically confident.
And also in those days it was a bit different really. Because we were happening
in the Eighties, towards the end of the Eighties you were aware that people
were looking at you - you know you had to get used to being Neil Tennant
'of the Pet Shop Boys'. I was going out with this guy in the early Nineties,
he used to get annoyed because he was just regarded as 'Neil Tennant's boyfriend'.
And I could understand him disliking that as well."
"So I wasn't that bothered [about relationships] actually. I was very
wrapped up in what we were doing in the Pet Shop Boys. But before that in
the Seventies I used to go out with girls all the time - which I used to
quite like but I knew it wasn't the whole story."
Escape's
a recurring theme in your early songs. Did you do the traditional thing
of running away to the bright gay lights of London. Or was it just that's
where the jobs were?
"It's 'cause I couldn't get into university... I always thought I'd
end up in London but the fact of the matter is I didn't get into Nottingham
University and the only college that did History was North London Polytechnic.
But I always liked the idea of being in London - when I was a teenager,
friends and I used to stand around Central Station in Newcastle thinking
'wow all those trains are going to London, wouldn't it be exciting to get
on one?' The first track on Please is precisely about that. It's about running
away, in fact it's about New York - 'cause New York for me at that point
was exactly the same as London would have been when I was a teenager. So
yeah - I always wanted to run away, cause I knew I didn't want to have the
conventional life I could've had."
One
thing I find fascinating about pop stars in general is the way they'll
often say things in songs that they won't say in interviews. You were
doing that weren't you - your early songwriting was very autobiographical.
"Yeah, I mean it was a kind of autobiography. It was about how I felt
at the time. Most of the lyrics, a lot of the lyrics in the Eighties, are
all about escape and longing. And it's because... it's because I was by
myself. I was kind of longing for the moment when it was all going to happen."
What?
Love?
"Yeah. Love. There's a lot of those. And escape for me... they're more
about escape - like West End Girls is. The hole of club culture used to
fascinate me. Chris and I would just be fascinated by the fact that Heaven
would be full of people who didn't have jobs. They'd be all dressed up.
And so I used to write lyrics about it. Like Tonight is forever. To me it
just seemed romantic - that people see the night as where they really live
- and I always used to find going out at night exciting, like you were a
different person than you were during the day. There was a sort of theater
about it as well. let all happens under artificial lighting, people aren't
the same as they are in daylight. But in the Nineties I've written less
about those subjects because I felt less about them really. They weren't
true anymore."
Chris
says when he first went to clubs he didn't dance. Did you feel like the
classic literary outsider documenting all these things?
"Yes I did. Chris and I would always stand there scowling in the corner.
Just laughing with each other. It was only with the Rave thing that Chris
became part of the culture and he was very much part of it then in a way
that he hadn't really been before then. That changed the way Chris was quite
a lot as well. He was driving round the M25 going to all these raves and
everything. And that was very different to our experience of the early Eighties
club culture where we were observers really. Voyeurs even. You know, watching
it and you find it exciting but you're not consciously part of it."
There's
an analogy I use about being at school and always being the last boy to
be picked for the football team...
I was the worst boy in the school at football. But I was quite proud of
it. I tried to make it into a strength rather than a weakness."
And
when you grow up and come out, you feel left off the team again. Is that
how you felt - you didn't really fit in?
"Oh to this day! Yeah."
How
do you see yourself now? Slightly awkward still?
"Yes. I do. Sometimes. It depends really on the situation. It depends
who I'm with. In a crowd of strangers I feel... I'm not like some people
who find it a fabulous challenge and thrive on those situations. I always
feel a bit insecure then. Once you've been a sort of outsider you don't
lose that do you? You carry it with you forever because it's been a defining
thing. So many times I think one of the reasons I am what I am today is
because I used to hate the whole football culture we had at school. I hate
the football culture at the moment, probably for that reason."
And
Behavior was about rejection in love. Was that your experience then?
"It was autobiographical. It was also 'cause a close friend had died
of Aids. And also it was the end really of one whole kind of thing. The
Eighties pop star thing. So it was a reaction to that. Although at the time
I remember saying we were making a Kylie Minogue [type of] record and we
probably weren't. It's not how it came out. I think we were more into making
beautiful records as well then. Records that sounded gorgeous and sad."
Where
did that come from?
"I think that came from Chris as well as from me. In fact it was Chris
that choose the songs that were on Behavior We could have made it a very
different album. I wanted the song We all feel better in the dark on the
album and Bet she's not your girlfriend and Miserabilism. Which were all
funny songs in a way. But we took those off so there was like only one Hi
NRG song So hard and one funny song How can you expect to be taken seriously
on the album so it did make it a great cycle of songs."
And
Very as we now know was all about you falling in love. Bilingual seemed
to be you saying "cheer up mate".
"I don't think it was,"
Se
a vida e?
"Ah, yes."
And
Before as well?
"Before goes back to the sort of longing thing. It's not about me,
it's about someone else. And Se a vida e is the same, yes. It's the same
person. It was a very strange time in our lives that really."
Why
was that?
"Just things in our personal lives that I can't really talk about.
And so it was reacting to that. Chris and I always see it as a very sad
album, but I'm quite happy that other people don't. The happiness is only
a response to feeling sad on that album. And also my own relationship breaking
up in a difficult kind of way made me feel a bit sloshed about all of that.
And then I met a new person again straight away, well six months later,
which is quite remarkable really. So there's a couple of songs that touch
on that. A good friend of mine committed suicide. All of these things...
it sounds corny but it's about survival. That's what it's about if you look
through every song. let's about dealing with things and surviving. Being
under pressure in various parts of your life. That's why I think it's our
most difficult album as well. People find its message confusing really."
When
it came out you said you thought it would get slated.
"I thought people would think it was gloomy." (Laughs)
But
so was Behavior and they all loved that.
"Yeah, I would have said Behavior was poignant rather than gloomy.
But then I suppose Bilingual was as well. Bilingual seemed to be borne of
so much pain. But it didn't work out like that. It's interesting that's
why Se a vida e is so incredibly chirpy and happy - because it's a response.
And also on a musical level, completely, we were trying to do different
things. You know it's not full of Hi NRG stoppers and all the rest of it.
You've got one funny song. Single bilingual is meant to be funny. Otherwise
it's a completely sincere album. Which is probably less fun for people at
the end of the day. Why? I always think people are happier with us when
it's more... ironic and camp and all the rest of it."
The
penultimate track is To step aside. You've joked about being ready for
the end when it comes and putting out an album called Pet Shop Boys Down
the Dumper. Is that at the back of your mind now? Or is there plenty more
Pet Shop Boys to come.
"Oh there's much more Pet Shop Boys to come, yeah. I think we want
to do things outside and in different ways than we have done, work with
different people."
My
last question is my "wince" question. Was it worth it?
"It was definitely worth it. I mean the whole thing has been something
incredibly exciting. There's always ups and downs you know. I've never looked
back with any..."
Sense
of shame?
"Regrets, really, about it... or sense of shame. I always look back
with pride and think 'wow!' I feel a bit like a showbusiness survivor now
as well. Let's an archetype I've always liked - there'll probably be one
in the musical. Showbusiness survivor. I'm also enjoying myself at the moment.
I like everything I'm doing. I'm liking doing The Savoy shows. I'm loving
working with Jonathan Harvey. I'm enjoying putting together this Noel Coward
album. They're all things I've always wanted to do. You know, there's still
ambitions you have that you want to fulfill."
This
article was published in the June 1997 edition of Gay Times magazine
Richard
Smith is the author of Seduced and Abandoned: Gay men and popular music.
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