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The `out' life of a pop star
In a recent conversation with Bay Windows, Neil Tennant talks about a new Pet Shop Boys album and tour, and what it's like to be an out celebrity

Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant doesn't want to be thought of as a gay icon. He doesn't approve of them or believe that one's sexuality should mean anything special. "I never see myself as being a (gay) role model," Tennant said during a recent interview with Bay Windows. "I don't think you should just define yourself through sexuality. I think there's a lot more to life than that."

The Pet Shop Boys will stop in Boston this Sunday May 19th to play the Orpheum Theatre. They have been rumored to be the special major label guests at the Gay/Straight Youth Pride event at Copley Square. But Pollstar.com (a Web site devoted to concert information) says they are scheduled to play in Washington D.C. that night, and in Boston only on Sunday.

On their new album "Release" Tennant and the other Pet Shop Boy Chris Lowe took a back-to-basics approach. While laying the foundations of the tracks they put in real drum and guitar sounds. And instead of using a dance backdrop, a folk-pop sound replaced it.

"We've made a lot of records that have been influenced by dance music. And on this one dance music's become such a big world wide industry that we thought it would be more original to do something that wasn't really a part of that. We thought it was more interesting to do something more concentrated on the melodies and the lyrics on the songs."

"We made this album like we normally do which is essentially programming with instruments on top of it. Chris started using different sounds. He's using samples of real drum sounds. I put the chord changes down as we were writing the songs on guitar rather than keyboard just really to see where it lead us to be honest. And it was sort of fun because it was different. And the album is a result of that."

The first single "Home And Dry" has candy-coated pop charm with intelligent love-song lyrics. The story being told hits home in a post-September 11th way, "all those frantic trans-Atlantic miles," being sung about a lover having to fly back from America to England. Meant to describe long dark trips flying across the pond (the Atlantic ocean) at night. It could be an ode to anyone whose lover is away. The lyrics remain ambiguous. Tennant croons for his "Baby," but we never find out what gender that person is.

Listening further into the disc the maturity of two people who have been writing songs together for almost 20 years comes through. They recorded the album in the serenity of Tennant's home studio in northern England. They invited their friend, former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, to add Brit-Pop sensibility to most of the record. "Johnny's style of guitar playing really fits with our music because it's very melodic and has a lot of the rhythm to it. And he has a lot of ideas."

In particular "Get Along," sounds like it should have been recorded by Oasis. Telling more stories on this album than in the past, they took from the people around them and found fodder for lyrics in the press. "I've always written songs based on my own life, life of people I know or stuff from the world around us. We always have newspapers and things lying around us in the studio."

Love song for Eminem

When rapper Eminem caught slack for his homophobic lyrics, the Pet Shop Boys recognized where he was coming from. They decided that if Eminem can play lyrical games, they could too. They wrote a retort with "The Night I Fell In Love," in which a male groupie gets backstage after a rap show and sleeps with the singer. In the song the groupie asks the singer why he says homophobic things. The rapper just shrugs.

"What I was really aiming to do is to make something beautiful out of something really ugly," Tennant said. He wanted to find a way to explain what Eminem meant by reversing the roles. "[Eminem] says he's playing a role, [and that] he's not being homophobic, he's representing homophobia. I just thought it would be interesting to play a character and to use it to make something beautiful. So you come away feeling good about it."

"I think at the end of that song, you know this kid has gone to the concert and he's met the rap star and he ends up spending the night with him. And they have a great time," Tennant explains. "It has this sort of glow about it. And it's sort of sweet. I just wanted to make that to make something beautiful out of what has been rather ugly."

Tennant didn't think any of Eminem's people would hear the song. After Dr. Dre, Eminem's producer who is named in the Pet Shop Boys song, heard the song he responded positively and thought it was about time someone responded in this context. "I was really impressed by Dr. Dre's response. It was really good natured," Tennant said.

Because they don't want to see history repeat itself, they wrote a song for their new album "Release" that continues the fight that Matthew Shepherd and racism victim Stephen Lawrence died for. In "Birthday Boy" the Pet Shop Boys compares Christ's death to the two men who were murdered. "(They) died for our sins. I wanted to draw that parallel, and hopefully things change," explains Tennant. "I also have an optimism that (things have) changed during the course of my life, and (are) rapidly changing now."

No Pride celebrations

He looks forward to a day when there will be no pride day celebration, "at some point it won't even be necessary for us to have gay newspapers, and all of the rest because we will be just one community."

Although it's contradictory to his views on being labeled a `gay' artist, the Pet Shop Boys are listed on the Human Rights Campaign's new National Coming Out Day poster "Being Out Rocks!" If it helps people who are dealing with homophobia, Tennant is ready to add the Pet Shop Boys moniker to the cause.

"I can't believe there are people who don't think it's okay to be gay. It is easier to say that if you live in London, or maybe in Boston which is a sophisticated city," he says as he stares at a fire escape in a hotel room in New York. "But it's easy for me to say that living a sophisticated life in London. You sort of forget what it's like for some people. "

"I do feel the gay thing has been created because of political oppression, because people haven't got the same equal rights, because people get attacked for their sexuality. People make so many assumptions if you're gay or something, about your life and the things you do or the music you're gonna like, they think your gonna like the Pet Shop Boys," he laughs. "It's like you turn into a cliche. I think what we all need is to have the freedom to do what we want to do without being attacked by anyone. And to have the legal freedom to do that as well. And also to have the freedom to not be stereotyped."

Still dancing

"Release" does have some dance moments, such as "The Samurai In Autumn," "Here," and the Babyface inspired "E-mail." They even experiment with the vocodor – the computer sounding voice synthesizer – the same effect made popular by the Cher hit "Believe." But on a whole this album is a departure for them.

They have no plans to do remixes for it themselves. He explains, "We've got a new policy of putting out an a cappella (version) of the song as we release the singles so if people want to do mixes they can do them." A German remixer made a trance version of "Home And Dry" that was so good they decided to release it as a single in the UK. When asked if he and Lowe share a brain after so many years of making music together, Tennant laughed. "No, but we have a strong friendship and a creative relationship. I think we're quite loyal people and you know, we have a lot of fun doing this. We share a sort of attitude to the world. We never do things the easy way but it makes it fun."

What can we expect to hear on Sunday? "This show we're doing, bringing to Boston as well, is a very different show than we've done before. All of our past shows have been sort of theatrically inspired. I think this is the first time that we actually presented the Pet Shop Boys as musicians. It has a different sound. It's got this sort of stronger deeper sound than in the past." While in the States promoting the new album, Pet Shop Boys are working on reviving Wataplava, the defunct all-gay tour that was canceled last year. Many promoters liked the idea, and are still interested. There is talk that if the Pet Shop Boys come back to North America in the fall, it will be called Wataplava and have other out artists on the bill too. But just to be on the safe side Tennant adds, "I'm not making any promises!"