interview

THE BOY IS BACK

Boy George Records

1st Album in 18 Years

by Gregg Shapiro

After an 18-year absence from recording original material, Boy George tackles faith, heartbreak, new love and even politics in This Is What I Do.

Later this year, he'll go on tour in the UK with his old bandmates in Culture Club, the group that launched him to fame in the early '80s. But first, he'll be in Cleveland to DJ a set on Aug 11 at the White Party, a Gay Games event that will take place at Jacobs Pavilion, part of the

Nautica Entertainment Complex in The Flats.

Gregg Shapiro: I'd like to begin by talking about the album cover for This Is What I Do. You are wearing a fabulous hat, as you have done on the cover of many of your albums. How many hats do you own?

Boy George: Probably 40, maybe. They often go on to another life. Whenever I get asked for auction items, it's usually a hat. The hats do get recycled quite a lot. Roughly, at the moment, I would say I have 30, 40. But they go and change and they have other lives.

GS: Do you have an all-time favorite hat that you've hung onto over the years? BG: I have new hat which I haven't worn yet.... The guy that makes my hats, a guy called Philip Treacy, is a very amazing milliner in London. He gave me this beautiful Swarovski crystal hat, which I have. I just don't have anything to wear with it. It's such a number of a hat! I keep thinking, "What the hell will I ever wear it with?" Maybe it will appear on my tour. I don't know.

GS: Did you hear "It's Easy" and "Any Road" as country tunes while you were writing them or did they evolve into that genre? BG: I'm not someone who is frightened of country. It's always

been

jazz, country, bluesit's always crept into what I do. Certainly with "It's Easy," it was always going to be a country song. The idea of it was a Patsy Cline-type song. Very simple, to the point..

"It's easy when you're the one who stops loving first" felt like a classic Patsy Cline/Tammy Wynette/Dolly Parton tune. That was the thinking absolutely, 100 percent behind that. I wanted to come up with one of those lines. The song was written around that line.

GS: I really love "Any Road," a song with powerful messages, such as "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there," and the spoken conclusion where you say, "I'm glad I'm not crazy like I used to be."

BG: That particular song was written around the groove. We sat around and came up with that guitar line [hums the part]. That was the starting point to create a mood.

GS: I've always maintained that when a singer/songwriter records a cover of someone else's song that it's a way to make a statement. Other than saying that you have great taste in music, what does your cover of Yoko Ono's "Death of Samantha" say about you?

BG: I've always loved the song. I think it's a really beautiful lyric. A lot of people say to me, "Yoko Ono, she just screams." They don't think of her as a writer.

It's a song I always play to people when I talk about Yoko.... There's a great acoustic version of "Death of Samantha" that she does that I love. Lyrically, it feels like something I would have written. It's a song I should have written or wish I'd written.

GS: Music videos played an important role in your musical career. Do you plan to make music videos for any of the songs on This Is What I Do? BG: There is a "King of Everything" video and a "My God" video. There are other ones planned. They're not going to be like back in the day, 100 grand [laughs].

The video for "My God," we made in my house. It's up online. It's a great little video. I think the way you do things now is very different. ... It's almost come fullcircle back to the beginning when there weren't massive budgets and you had to be a bit more creative. I think that's exciting.

GS: As someone who has spent a fair amount of

time behind the decks as a DJ, are there

songs on This Is What I Do that you would

like to see remixed for club play?

BG: I think they're going to be free, not going to be sold. We started off with "Feel The Vibration" because that felt like the most obvious track to do as a dance mix.

46 august 2014

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