Pat Geary speaks to Pete Burns on September 17th, 2000. Recorded in the UK. A RIGHT STUFF exclusive!!

Pete: Now I've lost the thread of what we were talking about.

Pat: (laughs) Yeah, so have I.

Pete: Oh, the combination of male and female.

Pat: Yeah.

Pete: Well, we' re made of mother and father.I would say I was made up of 80% of my mother, who was particularly strong, and 20% of my father.

Pat: Yeah, well, you manifest more though the female component of your personality, which you say obviously we all have the male and the female. Do you think that...

Pete: I don't feel female.

Pat: No, very obviously not.

Pete: And I obviously don't like it if someone mistakes me for a girl. And that's no offense to women. You have to be more of a man to look like me than a man who stands on a building site and pumps himself full of steroids. I mean it's all drag, honey.

Pat: Well, isn't it a unique thing that a man will adopt some feminine characteristics and yet not try and be a drag person or to impersonate?

Pete: Well, you know, drag queens have fun. Because they can go out and wave their knickers in the air and do what they want. The next day when the wig and the makeup's off, no one knows who the fuck they are. They're really lucky.
But I like everything to be permanent. Because I don't want to do it one night and like it, and then wake up in the morning, and it's dissolved like the witch in the Wizard of Oz. And I wanna be the way I wanna be.
But define feminine. Feminine's got so many definitions. I recently had a two hour talk with Camille Paglia on that subject. She's a huge fan.

Pat: Yeah, great, well she should be. That must have been an interesting conversation. I would like to have heard that.

Pete: Well, she just basically said that her feelings were I've been blocked from my career in America because people found me too sexy. You know, what does that mean?

Pat: I would say it means that your sexuality is ambiguous, and that threatens people. In other words, a male will find you attractive and then feel guilty about it and angry at you for eliciting those feelings.

Pete: But I ain't doin' it for them. And that's where a male should somewhat reduce their egotistical feelings. (laughs) Because I ain't doin' it to turn them on. And I'm not even doin' it myself to turn myself on. I'm doing it because I've got to do it just like you've got to take a pee when you wake up in the morning.
I don't feel my tattoos are put on. I felt that the skin over them was removed and I brought things out. And I mean I'm not talking all spiritual or turning into the Dalai Lama, but I've been studying a lot of very interesting things. Particularly a book that's totally blown my mind. Because while we were in Japan we watched CNN. And you know they wheel the psychics out? And they're all face lifted and manicured and talking a load of crap.
One called Sylvia Brown was on, and she was a really down to earth woman. And both Lynne and I were in tears at the things she was saying on TV to the people who were calling in. She was so down to earth. So I sought out her book and it's called, "The Other Side and Back; a Psychic's Guide to Our World and Beyond" by Sylvia Brown.
And it's not about ghosts and voices in my ears. It's all about your self-esteem and the fact that you always have a spirit guide. And you can contact the departed and stuff like that.
And I kinda believe in those things. I feel the presence of my mother around me. I've been very, very angry at my mother. Because the one thing I thought she left me was a propensity for depression due to her losing her family in the Holocaust. And there was a time I spoke out loud last year and said, "Mother, you bitch, how could you do this?" That's all she left me. She didn't even leave me a ring or a watch.
And now I realise that she was in her transitional phase. And all of a sudden I suddenly felt her presence. And I don't want you to write this like I'm being really pretentious, because more than anything my mother was schooled to be a star and an actress. Her father owned the film studios UBA, that did Dietrich's first silent movies. They discovered Dietrich. Dietrich was a house guest of the Kwittners (spelling?), my mother's family.
And my mother was schooled in silent films. And all she ever wanted to be was a movie star. Expressive, not a talkie. Expressive, with her face. And she took me through facial expressions, how to talk with your eyes. I know it sounds like Norma Desmond.

Pat: Well not at all. I remember you showed me some footage from Japan for a video that was never done for one of the tracks from "Fan the Flame".

Pete: "Total Stranger".

Pat: Yeah. And you're moving your hands. You're sitting on the chair, Dietrich style. And it just really was like a silent film watching that.

Pete: Yeah, I was very proud of that. I didn't see it till just before...it was a rejected film. The record company rejected it.
But I've just done an amazing new video. But we've got to re-edit it, for "Hit & Run Lover". And it's like Steve's very good at that. He lights me, and he knows the way I want to look. You know, camersa, schmameras...I've seen cameras up the wazoo. But I can turn it on for a camera, because that's your communication. And I would hate to be one of those artists that try to seduce the camera in a sexy manner.
I'm addressing the camera, because it's the world out there, or the person I'm singing to. And I feel that I'm achieving my mother's wish.

TO BE CONTINUED

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