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

Pat: It's not an easy thing to do to carry on after all the big support has been taken away from you. Then it's a whole different ballgame.

Pete: Yeah, but you know, it's not in my control. An apology [for cancelled shows] would be the wrong word, because I think if you really like somebody, you never need to say you're sorry. I'm not sorry; I didn't do it. It was other people. You write your revenge list in pencil, but some things go in tattoo ink to me.

Pat: Hey, some day are we going to get a piano album of Pete Burns?

Pete: Oh, most definitely, but more organized than the last one, because I took on a project that no one was up to. Yes, you will, but it will be released through an internet website because I'm not going to have a record company suddenly suggesting to me, "Hey, maybe you should do...oh, I don't know....."

Pat: A piano version of You Spin Me Round.

Pete: Well it doesn't work, because the song's not saying anything. If the song's saying something, it stands up with a piano. There are great songs like Total Stranger that were written with a piano. Gone Too Long was written with a piano.

Pat: How about Blue Christmas?

Pete: Well, we did a disco version of that on the album [Fragile]. Cause it just sounds really cool like Phil Spector. You know, I thought, "I shouldn't be doing this", then I thought, "No, because the people who like me will get it, because it is kinda funny, but it's also got an emotion to it.

And I think Christmas puts big pressure on people to be happy-happy-happy. I mean I've had two, I mean three of the most miserable Christmases in my life and I dread it this year [2000]. Because it's kinda lonely at Christmas. Not that you want to party, but it's kinda like, where is everybody?

You know, maybe today I'm not feeling like Suzy Sparkle and I'm supposed to. Christmas puts pressure on people and that's the sort of feeling I've tried to convey in that song lyrically, but musically we wanted it to feel really really happy.

There's a song by an artist called Diane Carroll, The Perfect Year.

Pat: Oh, yes. Dina Carroll.

Pete: Yeah, Dina Carroll. Wonderful song. I wish to God I'd written it, you know, I feel physically ill every time I hear it, because I wish I'd written it.

Pat: (laughs) Well, I tell you, Blue Christmas guts me. I played it on Christmas Eve here last year or the year before.

Pete: You must remember that was recorded in the living room into a tape, not in a studio.

Pat: It's very intimate and you share the feeling of sadness. I mean you can feel the hurt in that song. And it's one of those things where it hurts, but it hurts so good. It feels good, but it's very sad.

Pete: Well, you know, both of those feelings, pleasure and pain, are really important. As I get older I realize, you know, for instance if I looked out a window and saw a unicorn one morning, I'd be amazed. But if every morning I saw a herd of unicorns, I'd call the pest control people.

Pat: (laughs) Yeah, the one big weakness I see in American mass culture is they try to deny the sadness and the necessity of having sadness in our lives. They do focus groups on the endings for films, and of course the audience will always vote to make the film have a happy ending. And you wind up with a lot of films which are ruined, because rather than reach a logical conclusion, there's an upbeat tacked-on ending.

Pete: Yeah, I think that's really old Hollywood tradition from the Depression era. You know, like the Busby Berkeley movies, "Lullaby of Broadway"...

I like films with interesting endings, for instance, if I go to see a film with Bruce Willis in it, I know he's not going to die before the end. And I'm very choosy about the movies I'll actually go and see. And it's older movies that I like. Like one of my favourite movies of all time is the Misfits.

It's just those scenes at the beginning, and knowing what Marilyn was going through at that particular time, and seeing her acting in those opening scenes, it's incredibly moving to me, her acting. Not even so much the story, but the atmosphere that's captured on the black and white actual film.

Another of my all time favourite movies is Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean.

Pat: yeah, with Cher.

Pete: Yeah, but it's not just cause of Cher, but it's the whole theme of the story. Because for some reason that period, the Jimmy Dean period, there's something in me that brings me there to that period of youth culture.

Pat: We were just flicking through the TV, and there was a Western that was almost over, and the hero was saying goodbye to his son. The father was about to be hung.

And I was saying, "You just have to wait now, because obviously something is going to happen and he'll be saved". But the movie ended with him being hung. And he was just hanging there, and I was thinking, "What a great movie (laughs)!"

Pete: Yeah, it's not sick, it's just, what a surprise!

Pat: Exactly.

Pete: One of my favourite films is Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves, because that is exactly the emotion I felt with those Kuragi dancers. It was like, "You will always be my friend". A little too much emotion for me to feel at the time, but it was such a pleasure as well.

It was so moving, because they understood where I was coming from. They didn't think I was a drag queen, they didn't think I was trying to get into their trousers. They didn't respect me like I was some kind of diva. They were just honoured to be in my presence and it was mutual, I was honoured to be in their presence as well.

I want to see Dances with Wolves again. There are some of those scenes...they use a lot of Japanese actors to play Red Indians in Hollywood movies.

Pat: Yes.

Pete: And the language barrier is very similar. And I didn't get Kevin Costner-itis or anything like that. But it was that relationship between the two different...not races...

Pat: Cultures?

Pete: Species. And it was incredibly enlightening.

And my other favourite film of all time that I will constantly watch and will someday try to reproduce (I know people have tried to do it before) is Cabaret. Because there's something about that movie. The way she looks into the spotlight. There's something about that movie that's a magical movie.

And I'm not particularly a Liza Minnelli fan.But there's something about Cabaret...the ignoring of the destruction that's going on all around them and their escapsim into decadence. And then it all becomes too real. And the growth of these negative things, like the Nazis appear one by one, and everyone is going, "Oh, just ignore them, ha ha ha".

I find Cabaret to be a much more intellectually intense movie than it's given credit for.

Pat: Yeah, there's a great feeling of foreboding in that film, with the gaiety and glitz and with all this darkness around it, I think it's very emotional to watch it.

Pete: But the gaiety and glitz is really badly done, you know it's just on the surface and tacky, people in tights with bad make-up...

Pat: Exactly.

Pete: And it's the elements of show biz and theatre that I like. I like the chipped nail polish, you know what I mean?

Although I buy fashion magazines to look at visual imagery, I'm not really interested in seeing an air-brushed photograph of Naomi Campbell. I'd rather see one with chipped nail polish and no lipstick on, because it shows me how she's reached the process that everyone's exposed to.

TO BE CONTINUED

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