Introductory Note

The following is not intended as an interview. It is instead a verbatim transcript of a telephone chat I had with Pete, with both of us agreeing that the conversation would be shared with others through the Right Stuff website.

What I hoped to achieve is an exchange in which Pete and I would say whatever we would normally say in a phone conversation, without reference to the fact that others would be privy to these remarks later. In effect, I wanted visitors to the website to be able to "eavesdrop" on a conversation with Pete. To me, at least, this promised far more interesting results than a formal question and answer session.

As with any instance of eavesdropping, the listener (or reader in this case) may hear things that make them slightly uncomfortable; they might even hear remarks about themselves, and not always flattering ones. But that is what makes the whole enterprise of eavesdropping appealing, and even exciting.

It is an often repeated cliche that "you don't want to meet artists you admire, you will only wind up thinking less of them." With Pete, I find the contrary to be true. His extraordinary honesty and outspokeness are always a breath of fresh air, and even if I totally disgree with something he says, he almost always says it with such disarming directness and mischievous charm that my obejctions to the contents of his remark simply fade away.

In that spirit, I offer you the following glimpse into the worldview of Pete Burns, 2001.

Pat Geary
Glasgow, Scotland
Sept, 2001

Part One

Pat: Pete, there are some things that are bothering me, and I wanted to see if they bother you as well, or if there's just something wrong with me. It ties in with something we talked about last time we spoke at length on the phone, which was almost a year ago.

We were talking about how people in the public eye are dolled up and glamourised so they are beyond the capability of anyone to actually BE in real life. You know, there's airbrushing and make up and blah blah blah...and nobody can live up to that.

Well, in the last year, it seems to me, like we're moving way in the opposite direction, with things like "Survivor" and "Big Brother" where there are people who are basically just nobody, just people off the street...

Pete: Real people.

Pat: Yeah. And they're put on TV and they don't really do anything, and they're celebrities. It's like Andy Warhol was right.

Pete: Yeah, you know, I saw some of that Big Brother show, and I was so addicted. I feel like there's a huge hole in my life since it finished. Because it's very interesting to just look into the lives of real people. I don't know what segments of the population are really transfixed by TV shows like that. Maybe it's just people like me who live a cocooned existence who've never seen life or people like that, at least for a very long time.

Pat: Well, I was never actually able to take that first step and turn the bloody thing on, because it just sounded so naff to me...

Pete: Oh, no, it was fascinating, especially towards the end. But in a strange way, no matter who you are or what kind of life you lead, they're a reflection of it, really. You would be lying in bed with slobber pouring out of your mouth, drooling, tired in the morning, and so would they.You know what I mean?

Everyone, if they drink too much wine at night ,gets a hangover, everybody wants to lie in, eveybody feels grumpy, everybody has domestic dramas. They reflected that. Whatever you become, you're all the same.

Pat: So why should we watch them? You can just look in the mirror and see the same thing.

Pete: Well, I don't think it's necessary to watch them. I'm just saying that I'm just as bad as anybody else. I got absolutely fascinated by it, and involved in their daily lives.

I mean, I've not very good with TV in general, I've got a very short attention span. But that was something you could turn on at any time of the day and just watch people doing mundane things.

I do understand what you're saying, "why don't we just look in the mirror", but it's boring to look at yourself. So you were looking at somebody else. And they were totally natural and unaffected, so unconscious of the camera, particularly the one who's a celebrity now called Helen.

She was just so unselfconscious and hilariously funny, and a vivacious, wonderful person. At one point all she wanted in life was a Gucci bag and a pair of Gucci shoes and I found myself personally wanting to give her the fucking Gucci bag and Gucci shoes.

Pat: (laughs)

Pete: It would have been a real life changer for her. It was good to see people of, I suppose, a simple existence. And yeah, it does turn them into celebrities. But I think that they have a good time for the short time that they are celebrities. It doesn't lead to any of the other pressures that go with a career and the media. It's just like winning the lottery for them.

People want fame for fame's sake. It is like Andy Warhol said, everybody's famous for 15 minutes. But people think fame is some kind of cure-all for all their problems. But I think those people who were on Big Brother are probably realising that it's not, really. You still get bad breath, and fart, and stuff like that.

I don't know why I got addicted to it, but I did.

Pat: But do you think this is the kind of thing that after awhile it will burn out? Because people will get tired of watching real life and they'll want to see something glamorous and...heightened again, rather than mundane.

Pete: I don't know. You know, in the past year, particularly working from my angle, I don't know what's going on in the show biz industry anymore.

Like a fool, I read the [Right Stuff] message board, which I'll never do again.

Pat: (laughs)

Pete: And I read them all twittering on. And that's their right. Of course they're allowed their opinion. But it's beyond me why anyone would bother sitting at a keyboard and typing in stuff and send it in and read other people's replies about things.

They're complaining, "Oh, no, there's another remix of Spin me!". Well, I don't apologise for that at all. It's not my job. When the Fragile album came out, that wasn't my idea.

But it just seems now if you do have a past, and we do have a past, that a record company wants to capitalise on your past and only introduce the present or the future in very small pieces.

It's a shaky area, to actually get to put records out. We do need to put records out in order to do the other things that go with this job. And I realise now, to hear somebody get a six or eight album deal, that just doesn't happen anymore. It absolutely doesn't happen.

I mean, there are so many people signed now, they even go in and record an album, they do three singles, and then they're dropped before the album comes out!

Pat: Pete, yeah, that's absolutely the case. You know, I had a fellow I was working with whom you spoke to...

Pete: Yeah, I remember that.

Pat: We went through this Nashville thing with country music. And there, they'll record the whole album, they'll put out one single, if it doesn't get airplay, they just shit can the whole project.

Pete: (rueful laugh) It must be so heartbreaking for that to happen. It's like they almost get to the point of climax of an album coming out...Because especially when it's somebody's first album, it's just a big deal to have an album. Even if it sells or not, you've got 12 or 10 of your ideas down on something. That gives you some kind of euphoric state and inspires you to go on. You feel more legitimate once you've actually got something that's a volume of your work.

And now the record companies say, "your first single's flopped, ok, we're just going to throw your album in the bin". And you don't even own the stuff. They've got it. So your idea has just de-materialised into the atmosphere.

And I realise now the way record deals are structured, it's just dodgy ground. And for the first time in our career, to a degree, we've done what the record company wanted us to do. It's been really stress-free. They want remixes. On the Fragile album we did re-recordings and remixes. They wanted that. And they wanted 6 new tracks. I can't remember how many new tracks we put on it.

But they got what they wanted. They did a certain amount of work with it, then it fell down somewhere in the middle because we didn't go over to tour to support it. Because the conditions certainly weren't favourable in our area.

And then out of the blue, they say they want to remix the entire album into this trend they're creating over there called HyperTechno, which I don't understand what HyperTechno is. I've heard it. They've remixed our songs in this particular style. And if they think it's going to get us a new audience, it's them that have invested their money in this remixing project.

If they think it's going to get us a new bracket of audience, as well as keep our hard core with us...maybe they're right and maybe they're wrong, but I'm not in a position to say, "Hey, fans, I'm really sorry you've got another remix of Spin Me coming out." Because, you know....don't buy it [if you don't want it].

Pat: Sure.

Pete: That's my message to them...then don't buy it if you don't want it. The stuff I've heard is good, in the genre that they've remixed it, it is good.

But we're no longer in that position where we can just do what we want. And we do it for more than two dozen people who might twitter away on the Internet. There's more than them in the world to satisfy.

And when we were in Japan this time, it was really really hiccup free. It was very chaotic, it wasn't what I expected. It was an Avex rave, which was strange.

Pat: (laughs)

Pete: But they thought it was very successful. It wasn't what I would have though was successful. It wasn't our audience, as was stressed. We weren't particularly heavily advertised. We were just part of an Avex movement.

TO BE CONTINUED...

(c) Copyright 2001 Pat Geary. Not to be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.