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it , but I did , and that ’ s why art became so important to me . I still paint today and I ’ ve even had some of my work exhibited at Tate Liverpool , The Royal Academy and the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow .
Your first band Big in Japan , you played bass guitar . Was this your chosen instrument or did you always see yourself as lead singer ?
I started out in 1976 playing bass guitar . I thought I was great ; I performed quite well and wrote fairly good words . For nearly a year , I gave up music completely . For a while I thought of going to art college . But in 1981 I formed a new band , Frankie Goes to Hollywood . The name was taken from a Fifties poster advertising a visit to Los Angeles by Frank Sinatra .
Which artists were and have been an inspiration to you ?
I managed to get myself a guitar when I was 13 because Marc Bolan had an acoustic guitar and he would sit cross legged singing Deborah . Then David Bowie came along with a 12 stringed guitar . I tried to learn Star Man and Jean Genie , but they were too difficult for me to play ; it was my ineptitude at playing guitar which inspired me to write my own songs .
Me and a couple of mates were in love with David and Marc Bolan . Absolutely obsessed ! So , when I got to see Bowie at the Liverpool Empire , it felt like a special moment . I also loved Roxy Music and that was my second concert at the Liverpool Empire , it was so exciting to watch them . I also loved Kate Bush , she used to blow me away , I absolutely loved her !
So , watching these big names up on stage , did you know back then that you were going to be up there doing this ?
That was the dream , you know . Like a young lad who wants to be a footballer , I wanted to be David Bowie , Marc Bolan and Brian Ferry , be just like them . I had no idea how to go about it , I remember recording songs onto a cassette player , which you could do then , does anyone even know what a cassette player is these days !
I realised there were loads of others just like me , kids who wanted to dress up and be different . It wasn ’ t a question of , ‘ One day , I ’ ll be famous ’ in my head , I was already up there with Bowie and Bolan ! It sounds so silly now , but life ’ s like that when you ’ re young , isn ’ t it , you believe your own fairy tales .
Looking back , all these years later , how do you now regard the Frankie period ?
I think of FGTH as my performance art degree , in a sense . It was also my attempt at a fictional conceptual pop group , very much in the same vein as Sgt Pepper ’ s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars . It was almost as if Frankie was a character I was playing and it had a finite life span from which I had to move on . I had to run for my life . It became a toxic situation that had moved away from the original vision I had of it .
So , how do you Relax ?
In my back yard , in my little garden that we have worked on for years and years . I love it , sitting reading books and watering my flowers .
22 wirrallife . com