GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

July 31, 1998

Evenings Out

A Boy and his Club are reunited

ROBIN GREEN

by Jeffrey L. Newman

Nearly 14 years after becoming the first queen since Elizabeth II to grace the cover of People and Time magazines, singer Boy George is doing what no one ever thought he would: reuniting with the members of Culture Club.

After a much publicized break-up, and years of back-biting and cat-fighting between George and the band's members, the thought that this one-time chart topping group would be on the same stage together seemed like a remote possibility. But then the expected is not something that Boy George makes a habit of doing.

Unpredictable and tenacious, the singer has built his career by throwing curve balls.

This summer Culture Club, with all of its original members including George, Mikey Craig, Roy Hay and Jon Moss, makes its return, nearly 12 years after its unceremonious demise. The band is touring this summer with the Human League and Howard Jones.

They are also part of a summer-long VH-1 "Storyteller" special, featuring musical performances and interviews with the group's members, and Virgin Records will release a two-disc "VH-1 Storytellers Greatest Hits" package on August 11. One disc will be a greatest hits retrospective, while the other will feature the live performances from VH-1, including some newly recorded, never released tunes.

"People don't take me as seriously as a solo artist, as do they do when I'm part of a band," the 37-year old George said. “They find me more interesting as part of Culture Club. It gives the band an edge. It's part of what this band is about. And now that all of our secrets are out, people will understand our songs better. I know I certainly do."

George said it was a difficult process to separate his image from that of the band.

"Culture Club was such a big thing. It's really difficult to escape from that,” he said. "Only a handful of artists have been able to do that successfully. But we never completed our cycle. We never topped Colour By Numbers, which was the perfect pop album. After that we became too bogged down with being fabulous and living a luxurious lifestyle. Music became secondary. This should correct that."

The band, he said, has moved on from their earlier troubles, which included George's highly publicized bout with drug addiction and his tumultuous relationship, sexual and otherwise, with drummer Moss.

"Jon and I are still best friends and very much still a couple, we just don't shag each other any more. As I got older, I realized that it was more and more possible to maintain a friendship with lovers. I never could have done that as a teenager or in my 20s. If you have loved someone, it never goes away, and it's important to cherish that,” says the singer,

Boy George stands behind his band. From left, Roy Hay, John Moss and Mickey Craig.

who recently ended things with his boyfriend of ten years.

"I'm a vastly different person from who I was when I was 18. It's all water under the bridge now."

Born George O'Dowd in London in 1961, the singer came into prominence 12 years ago as the lead vocalist and staple drag queen for the pop group Culture Club. With flamboyance and extreme tenacity, the group amassed a collection of number one hits in-

cluding: "Do Your

Really Want To Hurt Me," "I'll Tumble For

You "and "Church of

the Poison Mind." Their debut album

Kissing to be Clever

music scene, something he severely lacked on previous releases.

But despite the song's success, and his acclaim as a club DJ and underground dance music producer, his three other solo albums, the most recent of which was 1996's Cheapness and Beauty, failed to ignite a spark with consumers, especially in the U.S. where sales were significantly low.

"We never topped Colour By Numbers, which was the perfect pop album.

In 1995, he wrote an autobiography, Take It Like a Man. It was his cathartic way of letting go of excess baggage and old emotional wear and tear. It covered the singer's life from his working class childhood through his coming-of-age as a gay teen, then a gay man and eventually a celebrity.

spawned more hit After that we became

singles in their native

U.K. than any other

debut album since the Beatles.

George skyrock-

too bogged down

with being fabulous

eted to instant interand living a luxurious

national fame. His

photo was featured on lifestyle.

the cover of nearly every major maga-

"

zine from Time to Newsweek. His every movement became fodder for the gossip columns. And equally, he was known for his quick, saucy retorts.

By the late-1980s the group had disbanded. In 1987, George was arrested for possession of heroin. That same year he released his first solo recording, Sold. A mild hit in the U.K., the album peaked at number 145 in the U.S. on the Billboard Top 200.

His single "Crying Game," a remake of the 1960s ditty that was featured in the hit movie of the same name in 1993, helped spark a renewed interest in Boy George. The song landed in the top ten of nearly every important music chart in the U.S. and abroad. It gave him a reemergence into the '90s

With humorous anecdotes and detailed accounts of his sordid past, the book dealt with the good, bad and the ugly, including his abusive relationships, heroin addiction and his fall as the reigning queen of pop.

"Writing the book was definitely a way of working things out, answering questions, making sense of my life," he said. “I said: This is my past and that's that. It's history now. Good-bye. Gone forever.” he says. "But you know, a lot of that stuff has been gone for a long time. I mean, it's been twelve years since Culture Club, Jon, [and] my heroin addiction. It's all behind me. I got really successful and then fell real hard. But I've worked my way back up and I'm happy with the direction my life is going."

One target in his book is George Michael, whom Boy George has been outspoken about over the years in his desire to see the former

Wham frontman come out of the closet. (He recently did, following his arrest for lewd conduct in a Beverly Hills park.)

"It's really a misconception that I'm picking on him. I don't think there's anything wrong with the things I've said. I'd be doing him a disservice if I didn't harass him about coming out. I don't care what you are-I don't care if you shag dogs-but I believe people in the creative industry have a responsibility to be out in this day and age," says Boy George defiantly.

George recalled that even though he never declared his homosexuality during the early days of Culture Club, he was “politically outed" because of the way [he] looked."

“I wasn't waving a political flag. But at a certain point, I knew I could not live my life in the closet. Publicly I didn't declare myself, it just got to point where I had to live a fulfilled life and say: This is what I do, I'm happy about it, and if you don't like it, tough."

With the revival of the band, the new album, and his plans for another solo release within the next year, Boy George is a much more relaxed, comfortable person.

"One of the things that has changed for me is that, for years, I expected people to hate me because I am gay. Now I've come to the conclusion that it really isn't a big deal, and because I feel comfortable about my sexuality and my life in general, people react in a different way," he says. “I don't have a chip on my shoulder the way I used to. I've come to terms with a lot of things about myself, and I'm comfortable with the choices that I've made in life."

Boy George and Culture Club will make their only Ohio appearance on August 9 at 7:30 pm at Blossom Music Center. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster or by phone at 216-241-5555 in Cleveland or 330-945-9400 in Akron.

Jeffrey L. Newman is a Chronicle contributing writer living in New York City.