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Boys
will be (pet shop) boys Like all rehearsal studios, the one Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, aka the Pet Shop Boys, occupy in Brewery Way, North London is grubby and cold. The only indication they are in residence — apart from an array of giant metal flight cases spray-painted with the giveaway words "Pet Shop Boys" — is an empty carrier bag from an upmarket furniture store. There's even an odour of old carpets and stale cigarette smoke, which is in marked contrast to the discreet waft of expensive aftershave that emanates from Tennant and Lowe. The Pet Shop Boys are the nicest-smelling pop stars you could wish to meet. So isn't this place all a bit wrong for a band that once wrote a song called How I Learned to Hate Rock and Roll? Apparently not. "We had a manager in America who used to manage a lot of big rock bands and he said, 'You are without a doubt the most rock'n'roll people I've ever managed'," says Tennant proudly. "We were the most decadent. We had make-up artists, dancers, wardrobe, the guys who just do the wigs, so there was this huge, mad entourage, which gives it this kind of party ambience. It's a bit of a circus. Oh, you'd be really surprised. Heavy metal bands are always in bed by 11 o'clock." There's something slightly schoolmasterly about Neil Tennant. He strides rather than walks, straight-backed, head up. He wears little wire-framed glasses and his thinning grey hair is cropped short. He speaks in clipped north-eastern England tones and, perhaps uniquely among pop stars, uses the phrase "what-have-you". He says he's tired: builders in his road have been making noise at seven in the morning. "Did you know that's illegal?" he says, frowning. "I've reported them to Kensington and Chelsea council." Frankly, he doesn't look like someone you would want reporting you to the council. As Tennant rightly points out, the public's perception of the Pet Shop Boys is largely based on the cover of their 1991 greatest hits collection, Discography, on which he smirks and raises a sardonic eyebrow and Lowe stares impassively from behind a pair of enormous sunglasses and a jaunty hat. Their aloof personae were partly informed by the fact that both had come late to pop stardom — Tennant was born in 1954, Lowe in 1959. During the late '80s, however, when the Pet Shop Boys seemed invincible, both made good copy by playing out their respective images to the press. Tennant was ever-prepared with an ironic quip — "I quite like proving that we can't cut it live," he commented after the duo mimed on television — while Lowe was haughty. "I don't like country and western, I don't like rock, I don't like rockabilly … I don't like much really, do I? But what I do like, I love passionately," he snapped in a quote later used on Paninaro, the duo's 1986 paean to Armani clothes. "Everyone with a degree of exposure gets lumbered with the cartoon version of themselves, which you have to live up to and that is the cartoon version of ourselves," says Tennant today. "Maybe it has something to do with our song titles. People perceive You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk as ironic, when in fact it's a painful, heartbreaking song to me, because it's so true." In person, Tennant is neither arch nor smug, and Lowe is seldom stony-faced. He has a bluff Blackpool accent, a habit of undercutting Tennant's more thoughtful speeches with a one-liner, and he laughs a lot. Though their moment may be behind them, Tennant and Lowe are still willing to experiment. They've taken their live show to universities in the UK (they were inspired, says Tennant, by Paul McCartney's early efforts with Wings), they've launched a stage musical, Closer To Heaven (and seen it close four months later after receiving mixed reviews). They've even used guitars on their latest album, Release. "The music business is very conservative at the moment," says Tennant. "We're back to 1961. And thank God for that, eh? It's Cliff [Richard], it's Adam Faith, if you're being really dangerous it's Billy Fury." "The Beatles was a huge mistake, going down that path, letting artists write their own songs," says Lowe. "Now everything's back to normal." "Yes," says Tennant. "All the Beatles ever did was make people take drugs." Despite the irony and the enthusiasm, 16 years after West End Girls hit number one, the Pet Shop Boys look rather like a reminder of a bygone era. In an age of confess-all interviews, they seldom discuss their private lives. Not much is known about the Pet Shop Boys beyond the fact that they're gay and their previous occupations: Tennant was a journalist for Smash Hits and had a job anglicising spellings for Marvel Comics, Lowe studied as an architect and played trombone in a jazz band called One Under the Eight. "People are more interested in a writer's life than a writer's writing," says Tennant. "Like the film Iris, which tells you that Iris Murdoch had Alzheimer's and did a lot of shagging when she was younger. Shagging, Alzheimer's — Iris Murdoch, a life in full. The 28 books don't get a look-in. I imagine Iris Murdoch would be horrified if she saw this film, although Dame Judi is obviously marvellous. Anyway, people have this idea that the life is what's important and you express it in your art. Well, you know, a lot of our life does go into our art, but songwriting, like any creative act, is contrivance as well. I don't think people appreciate the skill or the talent that goes into that." In addition to their unfashionable urge for closely guarded privacy, their music smacks of a time when pop was unafraid to take at least some risks, to not immediately seek out and target the lowest common denominator. "We work in an area that doesn't really have a category now, it doesn't really exist any more," Tennant admits. "There always used to be a new band, where people would say, 'They're the Pet Shop Boys of this year'. The KLF were the Pet Shop Boys of one year. There hasn't been a 'Pet Shop Boys of this year' for ages." Perhaps surprisingly, Tennant singles out Eminem among the current chart favourites for praise. "Some people feel uncomfortable with Eminem, because of the homophobia, or perceived homophobia," he explains. "Eminem's response is he's not personally homophobic, he is representing the homophobia of America, he's playing the part of a homophobic. I can buy into that, I think there's a certain amount of truth in it." It's a position he took when writing The Night I Fell In Love for the new album. "I thought, 'Wouldn't it be interesting to use Eminem's method — write a song about a boy who goes to see a rap artist at the Manchester Arena or somewhere, ends up getting off with him and can't believe he ends up spending the night with him'. I just thought, 'Well, if Eminem can give it, he can take it'." He chuckles. Perhaps because they represent a last bastion of intelligence and edge amid the mindless fray of pop, the Pet Shop Boys are still warmly received. "If you've still got an idea — which we have," says Tennant, "you can always carry on." "I tell you what I really hate at the moment," says Lowe. "When Steps split up, they went, 'Oh, we wanted to end while we were on top.' What's that got to do with it? Do you like doing it or do you not like doing it? This whole, 'We wanted to end at our peak' thing — it's [nonsense]. Either you enjoy making music or you don't; it's not something you can opt out of. They just regard it as some bloody stupid career." But what's the point of a band like Steps existing if they're not having hits? They're hardly in it for the artistic endeavour, are they? "But they'll always be able to play Butlins [UK holiday camp]!" says Lowe, apparently without sarcasm. "Sacha Distel's playing there, you know. He says he doesn't care whether it's the [Royal] Albert Hall or Butlins. Good on him, I say." Tennant
scowls, perturbed by the suggestion. "We would never,"
he says sternly, "tour Butlins." |
