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Interviews - This Morning with the
Pet Shop Boys 1999 '
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Richard
& Judy Show 1999 been on 'This Morning'! RM: Never?! JF: No, not once in 9 years. But we know that they've really been pining for us.. <Cuts to clip of Neil and Chris on 'TFI Friday'> CHRIS EVANS: Well, I read somewhere Chris, that you have been trying to persuade this man (Neil Tennant) for years to go on a particular daytime programme.. is that right? CL: Oh, what? Richard and Judy?! CE: Yeah! (Audience cheers!) CL: Well, I watch it every day and so i'd really like to go on it. <Back to Richard and Judy> RM: <laughs> Said without irony! And now they've got a reason, because their new single 'Red Letter Day' has just been released and is going straight up the charts. Let's have a look at it and then we're going to talk to them. <Plays Red Letter Day video> RM: Nice to see you! Hi! JF: Nice to see you. NT: Hello. It's nice to be here. JF: You didn't really want to come on did you? CL: Yeah, we did want to come on! JF: Did you really? CL: I do watch it every day! JF: <pointing to Neil> Did you have to force him? CL: No. But I had to explain who you were though! ALL: <laughs> RM: That must have taken all of 5 seconds. NT: <giggles> RM: Why did you go to Moscow? What was the thinking? NT: Well, we had this.. RM: Cheap fare? NT: We had this song 'Red Letter Day' and I personally like the sound of big Russian choirs. There's a great emotional quality to them and you can't really get that kind of sound in Britain. RM: Really? You mean the throatier.. NT: They have a Russian folk sound and we could have got some kind of choir here, but it wouldn't have had the same sort of depth to it.. RM: I think I know what you mean, it has a kind of a surge.. NT: It is, yeah. It gives the song a sort of emotional charge. JF: That's very erudite! Did you do research on choirs all over the world then? CL: <giggles> NT: Well, I suggested we got the Red Army Choir, but they've got a deal with a group called The Leningrad Cowboys.. JF: <laughs> NT: .. and that's the only pop group they can record with. So we had a guy who researched choirs for us. RM: So, which Russian choir was it? NT: It's the Moscow Choral Academy. RM: They did the job, but they weren't exactly welcoming musically were they? NT: They did it very professionally, but we had a film crew there and they interviewed one of the guys singing and they said "Do you like Pet Shop Boys?" and he went <adopts Russian accent> "No.", "Do you like pop music?", "No. Maybe for fun. Not really.", "Do you like singing this?", "No. Its a job." ALL: <laugh> NT: And I thought, "Oh, thanks!" ALL: <laughs> NT: But, they did a good job! <laughs> JF: That's how we feel talking to you! ALL: <giggles> JF: No, it's really nice to see you. One of the things you saw in Moscow, it says here, was a nude underwater ballet? NT: We were taken by the local record company people on a tour... CL: I wasn't there by the way. NT: He wasn't there.. CL: Let's get that straight! NT: He was in Las Vegas in the same week. RM: Were you? JF: Las Vegas because you think it's like Blackpool! CL: Well it is like Blackpool, yeah! Only Blackpool's better. I was watching the Tyson/Bruno fight. RM: Did you see that? CL: Yeah. All 10 seconds of it! JF: We were there for Mike Tyson's first fight once he got out of prison.. RM: Where did he fight when he first came out? JF: I don't know, but he won. RM: He smashed his head off. JF: He won in about 2 seconds. RM: Yeah, he was all over him. JF: Anyway, tell me about this nude ballet! NT: Anyway, we went to all these clubs. To this huge gay club in Moscow.. I can't remember the name of it now.. and they said <Russian accent> "Very special performance." We had to sit down and we all had caviar and vodka and everything. And the lights went down and this enormous tank was filling up one side of the wall and music by Rachmananov or someone came on. Suddenly, these guys came swimming down like this.. and they act out some story involving stabbing each other <laughs> and then they were swimming around in the nude.. CL: Are you sure it wasn't a TV you were tuned into? NT: No, it wasn't, but it'd be a great item for them though..! Actually, it was rather sort of moving, the whole thing. RM: So it worked? As an artistic endeavour? NT: It worked, yeah and they just had to keep diving up to the top to get a breath of air and then they came down again, but that was sort of out of the frame. ----------------------------------------- JF: You're very different you two, aren't you? I mean.. <laughs> you're COMPLETELY different! CL: Not like you two are! JF: Yeah, but we're married! ALL: <laughs> JF: (to Neil) But do you do most of the talking? Usually? NT: Only in interviews. If you'd recorded us in the dressing room, I wasn't really saying anything.. CL: Neil's a professional talker. RM: (to Chris) But at least you sit there in a kind of a happy quasi-silence. Please, don't let me put them in the same bracket as you, but we had The Monkees on two weeks ago. You must remember Mike Nesmith? NT: Yeah. CL: Yeah. RM: Well, if ever you do a talk show, don't have him on! NT: <laughs> RM: We had the guy on. He will not talk. And he takes a bitter kind of pride in it. When you say to him "You're a bit quiet mate", he goes.. "U huh." NT/CL: <laughs> RM: That kind of pop group 'cool' "I'm going to sit here and let the interviewer sweat" - that went out years ago didn't it? <silence> Didn't it?!! NT: As they sit in silence! ALL: <laughs> NT: A friend of mine interviewed Bob Dylan once and every question he asked, Bob Dyland said <adopts American accent> "Yeah, don't really get involved in that kinda thinking"! ALL: <laughs> NT: And then afterwards he'd heard Bob Dylan's manager saying <US accent> "Bob, how was the interview?" and he says "Weird, he kept asking me these questions" ALL: <laughs> NT: And actually, i've got to say, I quite admire that. RM: Yeah. Listen, how much time do you spend together? Do you see each other every week? Do you write together.. NT: It depends what we're working on. At the moment we're working on a musical with a playwright called Johnathon Harvey, who wrote 'Beautiful Thing'. RM: What's it about? NT: We're just really starting to work on the themes and the plot and everything. And so we spend about three days a week working on that. JF: What is it about the two of you? I mean, you (Neil) sound really learned and erm.. CL: <giggles> JF: .. and educated and artistic and everything and you (Chris) just sit there! NT: He's the one with all the exams and everything! JF: He's the one with all the exams?! Which exams? CL: Well, i've got a degree in architecture. JF: Oh, you haven't have you? How naff! <laughs> Where did you do that? CL: Liverpool. JF:/RM: Did you! CL: Yeah. JF: So you were brought up in Blackpool and you went to Liverpool University? CL: Yeah. JF: Wherabouts in Blackpool were you born? CL: Just near the Pleasure Beach - South Shore. I was there this weekend actually it was fantastic! RM: Have you been on The Big One? CL: Yeah! RM: Have you? CL: They've redesigned it, they;ve changed the first drop. They've changed it. RM: What, to make it less frightening? CL: I don't know why they've changed it, they've changed the curve of the initial drop. So, I haven't been on that yet because the queues were massive. RM: We still haven't been on it. I can't persuade Judy. JF: Not in a million years! RM: It's that long treck up and the very first drop.. that's the one isn't it.? You can't even see the track it's so steep. It does look as if you falling in mid air. CL: It's really great, yeah. JF: And you think Blackpool is better than Las Vegas? CL: Yeah, with Las Vegas, I was really glad to get away from there because it was those slot machines making that noise all the time! JF: Yeah. When we were there we thought it was like a vision of hell! Hearing that awful, awful noise! RM: And did you notice in the hotels there? Neil, you'll have noticed?... NT: I haven't been. Because I know i'd hate it! RM: You would hate it! All the big hotels - it's like going into a penny arcade. Wherever you look and whatever you see... <to Judy> What? What? JF: They're panicking because we've over-run.. RM: Oh. Pah. I've nearly finished! NT/CL: <giggling> JF: Yeah, he's the professional talker! CL: <giggles> RM: Anyway, you walk through it and you suddenly realise after you've been there for ten minutes just what's wrong. They have taken away all clocks, all windows. There is no sense at all of what time of day it is.. and that's so people keep gambling the money... it's terrible place, isn't it? Hell on earth. CL: <giggles> JF: I'm sorry, they're going bananas down my ear. They're making all sorts of decisions because we've spoken to you too long! But I really enjoyed it! NT: It's lovely to come on at long last! RM: At long last. Yeah! NT: It's been a kind of running gag really! Us on Richard and Judy! RM: How long have you guys been together then? NT: Well, we've been working together for 15 years and our first hit was about 12 years ago. RM: Yes, so for the first five years we were blissfully ignorant of each others existence! CL: <giggles> NT: There you go. RM: It was good to see you! It really was. And good luck with the single. NT: Thank you very much. RM: Yep, sounds fun! JF: OK.. go on.. weddings... RM: Oh, you want me to do this now? Alright, Ok. NT: <laughs> JF: ... sorry about this.. NT: It's very relaxed isn't it, this show?! RM: The language coming down my ear!! NT: <trademark high pitched giggle> RM: Now, for the next part of our wedding series, this week Elizabeth Emannuelle.. do you know her? CL: No. NT: Never met her. I know she designed 'the big dress'. RM: This week, she's genning up on ettiquette.. |
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