Chris Heath
This interview, by , was taken from the Somewhere tour programme.
It took place in Chris Lowe's flat on 8th May 1997.

The Pet Shop Boys are in Chris Lowe's London flat. Neil makes some tea, talks on the telephone and fingers the book he has just bought at the British Museum bookshop. The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. Chris is being taught how to use his new, mobile e-mail set-up. MTV is playing in the corner; until Neil grabs the remote and switches it off. Eventually they settle on sofas at right angles to one another and begin talking.

Though it is only four weeks before their Savoy Theatre residency begins, and hectic preparations have been underway for sometime, they are yet to start actual rehearsals, and many of the details are at from decided. Chris jumps up after half an hour and plays Neil the eccentric spoken introductions from a Dorothy Squires album recorded live at the London Palladium in 1970; this, he tells Neil, is how he should present the Pet Shop Boys songs from the theater stage. Neil agrees. As with many other things they say today, they may not be entirely serious, but they may not be entirely joking either.

Chris Heath: Why have you decided to play concerts this summer?

Neil: We decided to do a one-off gig, which proved to be impractical, Then we had the idea to do something called A Month Of Sundays which was going to heat the Theater Royal, Drury Lane, each Sunday for a month, and that proved impractical. Arc then Harvey Goldsmith, the promoter...

Chris:...wouldn't let it lie.

Neil: He suggested to us that 'we played a theater, and got the Savoy Theater. We've always talked about doing that. We talked about bringing the 1991 performance show into the west End, but we didn't want to be in it. We wanted to be 'featuring the music of the Pet Shop Boys'. and they were prepared to put it on but it Involved us being in it, We wanted to play this summer because we don't do a lot of promotion now, and I just thought: if you like the Pet Shop Boys, there's not an awful lot to like at the moment [laughs] because we don't really do anything. And we're quite looking forward to it.

Chris: [laughs] I'd rather be on holiday myself...

Neil: It is a holiday. It's going to be as good as a holiday.

Chris: Actually it's usually more fun than you think.

Chris Heath: How do the three previous tours seem to you now?.

Neil: I enjoyed them all, the different shows. The last one I particularly enjoyed. The first one, in 1989, the Derek Jarman one, was exciting because it was the first one, and in many ways it was the most varied show we've done. That was turns and costumes. Two years later we did Performance with David Alden and David Fielding, which was a much more complicated show altogether, and the atmosphere of doing the show during the tour was always slightly strained because of the practicalities of doing the show. We were always having to make endless compromises. There was just the endless stress of trying to do a theatrical production in rock venues, The rock people hated the opera people. Having said that, it looks great on the film.

Chris: The film was the best version.

Neil: Yeah. The show ultimately never reached the level of the film. I'm very proud of the film. Also, various elements of it had been completely copied. Take That were always saying, 'we want to do a show like the Pet Shop Boys'. Did you see their theatrical show? It was quite good. And Duran Durant Suddenly Nick Rhodes was on stage in a wheelchair Hello, we thought, where have I seen that before? And then, in 1994, really very much on the spur of the moment. mainly because Chris had been to Brazil, we decided to do a tour of South America. we always been told were popular there, and we sell a lots of records there. That became extended to tour of places we've never been before, and it became the Discover' tour That tour was definitely the most fun. it was meant to be cheep and cheerful ,a fun show. It was a great bunch of people. The dancers weren't trained dancers. We used Derek janman's films again, because they hadn't been seen there.

Chris Heath: It was the nudity and dancing tour wasn't it?

Neil: It was, yeah.

Chris: It was really good fun. And so, for this tour...

Chris: We've taken all the worst elements from all the previous tours [laughs]. haven't we?

Neil: [to Chris] what do you mean?

Chris: We've taken the sort of arty detached staging, the uncompromised staging and idea, and then we've doing a rock 'n' roll but not In a situation where you can easily get a lively response from the audience.

Neil: It's a very brave show.

Chris: It's monolithic. is that the word? Mono...

Neil: Monotonous [they both laugh]...

Chris: And, just to top it all. we're not doing any of the hits'. Let's hope they get the joke. It's will be good though..

Neil: We're are doing some of the hits,

Chris: We're doing songs that we want to do.

Neil: We're doing one new song called 'Friendly Fire' which might be in our musical. I wanted to do it because it sounds so theatrical. We quite exciting, doing a new song we've never done before. It has a sort of story-line. it's about a has-been Seventies rock star.

Chris Heath: How did you choose the songs?

Neil: We very quickly made a list of songs. A lot of the show Is definitely more experimental.

Chris: It's a challenging.

Neil: We've done dancers and costume change. Everyone has dancers and costume changes now.

Chris: Yeah. if you're expecting to come to the show expecting some rip-rowing good time, forget it. [laughs]. It's challenging. it's Intensely intellectual, this show.

Neil: It's a work of art.

Chris Heath: Are there no costumes this time?

Chris: No. there are clothes though.

Chris Heath: No velcro?

Neil: No Velcro. The first pet shop boys show with no velcro.

Chris Heath: No Wigs?

Neil: No wigs.

Chris: It's worrying, isn't it? there's no props. There's nothing. But the support act is very good.

Chris Heath: Do you do any dancing?

Neil: No

Chris: No

Neil: It's a concert.

Chris: It's a concept.

Neil: The Pet Shop boys in concept.

Chris Heath: On the previous tours in Britain you've been playing roles on stage, and so have barely acknowledged the audience before the encores. This time you're really planning to talk?

Neil: The idea is that there is talking. We're introducing a new concept of personality.

Chris: [to Neil] you could given a speech about tolerance. And hope.

Neil: I'd like to dedicate this next song to all of those who don't fit in...

Chris Heath: What about you, Chris?

Chris: I won't be taking at all I'll be tittering around the back.

Chris Heath: The stage set is based around boxes, I believe.

Chris: There's a metal cube, and all the lights ere contained within that, and that's where I'm going to be. Neil's going to venture out of the box and wander around. On ether side of the box are two screens which have videos projected on them off films made in real time, just as it is. We're going to interact with it.

Chris Heath: What does the cube represent?

Chris: Nothing. It doesn't represent anything.

Neil: It doesn't represent anything It's just a cube.

Chris: I mean, it could do. We can post-r-ationalise it if you want.

Chris Heath: Please do.

Chris: Well, it represents the embryo.

Neil: The womb.

Chris: Yeah, that's what I meant. What's the embryo?

Neil: the embryo's in the womb.

Chris: Well we're the embryo within the womb. But Neil gets out and. Interestingly, I stay in.

Neil: But, in the end, I go back in.

Chris Heath: Whose Idea was that?

Neil: Chris had this Idea that we were going to be in a silver box with ultraviolet lighting. which seems to have disappeared.

Chris: The ultraviolet light is still there.

Neil: Then I'd seen Sam Taylor-Wood's exhibition. Pent-up, which was these five video films all shot in real time which Interact with each other. And I happened to meet her at a party, and I thought it might be good to work together. I had an idea that we might use close-circuit television on stage, and you'd have screens broadcasting different scenes In London: things happening outside the theater. But that proved impractical because of the cost of satellite time.

Chris: At the moment we're only going to use white light.

Chris Heath: Are there any other performers or musicians?

Neil: Sylvia, the other singer; that's, all.. She'll be outside the cube.

Chris: All the equipment is round the back with Pete Gleadall who operates it.

Chris Heath: Is everything lie?

Neil: Yes, apart from the Introduction. The music Is played live out of the sequences.

Chris Heath: You've chosen as your support act In London a poet, Murray Young Why?

Neil: Mith Clark at EMI International told us about this guy they'd signed called Murray Young who does very funny poems about contemporary life, and she played it to us and we really liked it It's incredibly witty, and also rather sad, too, some of it.

Chris: Yeah...

Chris Heath: What appealed to you about doing a residency?

Neil: It's like being on tour without going on tour. Without the boring bits.

Chris: It's like a real job. Six days a week.

Neil: Turn up at the same time, leave at the same time. It'll be interesting to see whether it gets boring. I don't think it will though.

Chris: No? I don't think it will.

Neil: What'll be really different is that normally on tour you've generally travelled and unpacked and all that stuff...

Chris: the exciting thing about touring is arriving in a new town or city and going out to see what the clubs are like, so you don't have that thrill, do you?

Chris Heath: Will be the same every night?

Neil: We're going to do different encores, and if we do an acoustic song we may change that.

Chris Heath: Will you have understudies?

Neil: No.

Chris: Good idea. I don't think Neil could get away with it.

Chris Heath: How would you like the audience to react to the show?

Neil: Oh. Enthusiastically.

Chris: I'd like them to watch the Discovery audience and see what the audience was like in Brazil, and pretend that they are that audience.

Chris Heath: Your latest single is a version of 'Somewhere' from West Side Story, and you've also used Somewhere as the name of this tour. Is it just a handy title, or does the song provide a theme to the show?

Neil: I think it does. One of the great things about 'Somewhere' is that it's about longing and escape, Just as songs like 'West End Girls' and 'Go West' were. And to an extent that's kind of the theme of the show,. 'Somewhere' was Chris's idea why did you want to record 'Somewhere'. Chris?

Chris: Because you said I had to find a cover version to do to release as single to flog our album a bit more.[They both Laugh]. I was Listening to a tape I'd made of some of my Favorite Music at the time, and that was on it.

Chris Heath: What else was on it?

Chris: [Laughs] Oh, you wouldn't want to know.

Chris Heath: Do you get bored with being Pet Shop Boys?

Neil: No.

Chris: In what way? Personally or musically?

Neil: I'm enjoying this show. I'm enjoying thinking about what we're going to for the next album which we're already thinking about We're doing everything differently For the next album. We're a new concept. These are the dying days of the old Pet Shop Boys.

Chris: Everything's going to be changed. I still think that's a good idea, that we're replaced and a younger model comes in.

Chris Heath: And so what will you do?

Neil: we'll write the records.

Chris: We'll be the father figures. [they both Laughs].

Chris Heath: Do you still do all this for the same reason you did it twelve yeas ago?

Neil: [Long pause] Yes, I think is the answer.

Chris: No, that's the obvious answer.

Neil: I was going to say 'no', to be clever; but having gone through it In my mind I came to the conclusion that my answer was 'yes' Only now we try to cut out a lot of crap. We used to spend our time doing tons of promotion and we now don't do that and when we do it now we quite enjoy it.

Chris: It's obviously more exciting in the beginning. because starting something is always more enjoyable than maintaining something, and also it's more pressure to maintain and to keep reinventing and all that. It's quite hard. Because pop-music is about change-that's the whole point of it and to have to keep changing is hard. When you start out you have a very strong manifesto. It was coming form a scene, and you know a type of music that not many people are aware of it-it was like being Goldie and coming from the jungle scene. The scene for us was Eurodisco and American Patrick Cowley type stuff which wasn't generally heard, so you had an approach which you knew was fresh.

Chris Heath: So what's your manifesto now?

Chris: To find something else to plunder.

Neil: This is my manifesto. [holds up The Communist Manifesto] I'm going to mad a little bit, actually. 'Abolition of the family. Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the communists. On what foundation Is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain...' Quits interesting, that 'Do you charge us with wanting to stop The exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty'. It's quite a good read, isn't it? I read it when I was a student, it's got a fantastic start: 'A specter is haunting Europe. The specter of communism.'

Chris Heath: So how will those Themes play out in the show?

Neil: I don't think they will be played out in the show.

Chris Heath: Is there any connection between you playing in a theater now, and the musical you've been working on with Jonathan Harvey?

Neil: Not really. It's a coincidence. I think it's quite a good thing though. It sort of sets up the Idea. We've pretty much got the plot line, and Jonathan Harvey has started to write it, and we have written some songs for it, but there's only so far you can go without knowing what the whole thing's about. it's sort of set In the office of a nightclub.

Chris Heath: Why are you writing a musical?

Neil: I like musicals, and I don't think They're very good at the moment I've always wanted to do a musical where The music.is contemporary pop music, without being like Godspell or something.

Chris: Yeah. That's why.

Neil: The interesting thing, which I quits like, is that everybody expects us to write a musical. It's quite funny. A ftiend of mine who I haven't seen In years sent me Christmas card saying 'I always expect to see that you're 'writing a musical...'

Chris Heath: As well as the London shows, you're playing at two rook festivals, one in Denmark and one in Finland...

Neil: We are indeed, yes.

Chris: Spinal Tap or what?

Neil: The reason we're doing it is because the Savoy Theater dates lose quite a lot of money, and to break even, which is all we're trying to do...

Chris: Heaven forbid we ever make any money cut of anything we do.

Neil: I think we should get an Arts Council grant. lottery money. I've always thought we were educational. Imagine that: 'Storm as Pet Shop Boys are awarded £7 million lottery grant'. I like that. Anyway we're doing the rock festivals so That we can break even on the tour. Having said that, I've never been to a rack festival. Literally never ever ever.

Chris: Neither have I.

Neil: At The Finland festival we're supporting David Bowie.

Chris: And we're doing 'Hello Spaceboy' [Laughs] Imagine if we enjoy the festival. Imagine what will happen next summer. When's lollapalooza?

A Special thanks to Simon for letting me use some of his personal photos from his web site Somehere. If you want to see more of these tour photo's there's a link on our 'And Finally' page