"I'M NOT GOOD AT BEING A POP STAR!"
Away with you "matey"! Fir this is Pete Burns, singer with Dead Or Alive, who used to have soaraway hits and who used to wear an eye-patch and perv-breeks and do all the other things that brilliant pop stars do. And now he's back with anew tune called "Turn Around And Count 2 Ten" and, despite announcing that "journalists will be shot at the door", he invited Sylvia Patterson along for a "chat"...
"I've got septic tonsillitis!"
chirps a "jolly" ill Pete Burns. "I should have gone to the hospital on
Saturday and got them out but I didn't 'cos I've got to do this video. I feel like I'm
going to die - I'm a mobile corpse! But the show must go on..."
Indeed it must, for Pete Burns is the lead singer in Liverpudlian combo Dead Or Alive and he must "perform" all manner of pervings today in a bathtub without wearing any clothes because that's the kind of fellow he is. Pete Burns hasn't been very famous for a long time - not since the "heady" days of "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" and all those other demented pop whirlers in the days when he used to wear an eye-patch and preposterous luminous blue contact-lenses and all his clothes kept falling off every two seconds.
But now he's back! (a bit) with an even more demented pop whirler called "Turn Around And Count 2 Ten". And the reason for his "disappearance" is a grim one, viewers. For 18 months ago his mum was diagnosed as having lung cancer and he immediately whisked her and his dad down to his homestead in London so he could look after them. This he did until December last year when she died "without pain, thankfully, she just went to sleep and never woke up again" and then he decided "there was no point in moping around forever, that wasn't going to bring her back" and now he's "back to work".
Pete is also enjoying the benefits of having a few "bob" these days. He may not sell records by the "shedful" in Britain, but Dead Or Alive are the most famous group in the entire universe in Japan where they outsell even Dame Michael Jackson. And with this "bob" he has bought a gigantic house which he is busy renovating.
"It's got six bedrooms", booms Pete, "and it's being done up like a church at the moment - very nice. Even my dad likes it."
"It's got a lot of religious things in it - statues and neons and things. The fireplace is a pulpit and it's got the Cistine Chapel on the living-room ceiling hihih. My bedroom's actually really really ordinary - just a tiger-skin hihih. With a tiger-skin bed. Really quite ordinary. It's like sleeping on a piece of toast."
Ahoorgh. Pete also confesses to being entirely clueless about our super chartways these days - the last record he bought was the Pasadenas' thingie and he's never even heard of Yazz but he reckons Bros are "really talented from what I hear and I've heard two singles which thought were really good. I haven't actually listened to the radio or watched the television or Top Of The Pops for... whoo... a year."
Oooer. So, Pete... whatever did happen to that incredible eye-patch?
"God, y'know, I don't know how the hell I wore that. Well, actually the reason I started wearing it was to cover the black eye after I had me nose-job so gradually I got attached to the eye-patch and it got more elaborate and eventually I couldn't function without an eye-patch. But I got over it."
Thank goodness for that. And whatever happened to those incredible contact-lenses?
And has he had any more "jobs" while he's been "away"?
"At the moment, everything else is
still the same, but you never know, I might treat meself for Christmas. I have
got a huge tattoo on my bum."
Oh dear.
"Oh it's very elaborate - you can see it on the single sleeve. That was a birthday present and it's still sore. But that doesn't mean I'm going to shove my arse in everyone's face from now on! It's a private thing hihih."
"Oh I've got some in now!", he chimes, thrusting forward is gigantic black peepers. "Yes, these ones are black. I always wanted blue eyes, y'see, and there was no way they could do it surgically - which I would have had done if there was a way - so I had to opt for these. Black's because I'm into the natural look now."
What a demented bloke, eh listeners? But he's gradually becoming not quite so demented and now all he wants in the universe is a fluffy "lovable" pooch.
"It was either a dog or a baby", he "explains". "I'm getting broody, y'see. But I think the dog's in and the baby's out 'cos at least you can slap a dog about if it messes all over the place. I've also got two cats called Piddle and Poogie - very very normal cats. They'd never ever been out before because for the past 11 years I've never had a garden - and now they've three gardens in the new house! They're going crazy!"
And now, Pete insists, he is about to scale even greater heights of his new found "normality".
"I'm not actually very good at being a pop star", he ponders, "even though I might look like one. I do completely normal things like getting up at 9.30 and doing some housework then I go to the gym for four hours. That's like my form of relaxation! Then I'll just visit friends or go out. I've got a home and animals and a wife and I see my dad a lot and go to the theatre or the pictures and just do what you do, I suppose, except I don't have to clock in anywhere! I envy that, to be honest. I go green with jel' at my friends' nine-to-fives. I do! I envy normal life. That's what I'm aiming for now - to become a normal... husband."
Aw. Welcome back "Burnsy"!?
(Source unknown, 1988)