Boy George is in town this weekend – we tried to get our own interview with him (along with loads of websites, telly, radio and magazines) but we’re told he’s not doing interviews at the moment. So we tracked down this recent one – thanks to inthemix.come.au for letting us share it with you... Boy George is in a talkative mood. In fact, I can barely get a word in edgeways for the first five minutes of our conversation. Oddly, he isn’t raving about his new single ‘Time Machine’, or even his first ever visit to our shores. No, Boy George wants to talk about the internet. “People ask all the time what do I do, am I still making music. If you go on YouTube you’ll find so much stuff. I make my own videos, and there’s so much new free material… The internet is an amazing way of communicating ideas. The way I look at it, if I can’t get played on MTV, I might as well just make my own clips and do it for free, and I’ve got some great stuff on there.” I make a quick attempt to ask about George Michael, who has repeatedly said he will be taking all his music online for free distribution, but I’m not quick enough. “YouTube actually kept chucking me off for months, cause I was making these clips and I guess some of them were a bit risqué. Eventually I was like ‘OK, I’ve had enough of this’, so I wrote to the press department and I said ‘Look, you have of loads of my stuff on there that’s illegal.’ I have no problem with it, ‘cause I really support the downloading thing, stealing of music, totally agree with it, because I think that the industry has really devalued music.” I draw breath at the wrong time and miss my chance to ask a question. “If you wanna find something different you’re going to have to download it or steal it or look for it elsewhere. It’s always the big bands – the bands with the most money – that complain about downloading.” He stops and I start to ask about ‘Time Machine’, a rather gorgeous, dark duet with Amanda Ghost, co-writer of James Blunt’s ubiquitous ‘You’re Beautiful’, that has just a touch of Shakespeare’s Sister about it, but I don’t get to finish a sentence. “They want their stuff out there though. That’s why I love the internet.” With this conclusive statement comes the first break in his storm of speech, and I finally get my chance to ask about the song, which is being released as a download only, George observes matter-of-factly, “because it’s not getting radio play”. Its video, however, which George made himself, was highlighted on – you guessed it – YouTube. “It was great because we got hundreds of thousands of hits,” he enthuses, adding that he enjoys the instant and varying reactions. “They’re not always good reactions,” he concedes, giggling. “The internet is a cesspool for lunatics. It’s much more fun to kind of get instant reactions from people, whether they’re negative ones or positive ones.” There are some negative reactions that George is less thrilled about, however. Mentioning his forthcoming album, which he is working on with renowned reggae producer Dennis Bovell, leads to another impassioned speech. “A lot of the reggae stuff I’ve done is addressing the homophobia in reggae music,” he notes, but lets a lighter note creep in when he adds “I call it reg-gay. People are making records that are advocating killing gay people, burning down gay clubs,” George says. He recounts a story of him calling a UK reggae label that was distributing a record called ‘No Apologise’ which talked about shooting “batty boys” – Jamaican slang for gay men. “I rang them and said ‘How the fuck could you put this record out?’” he explains. “They were so shocked that I called them!” For George, his spin on reggae music is one in tune with its true purpose: “Reggae, really, is a righteous music. It’s a music that is always done with a message. What I’m doing is twisting it around and singing about things that I think are important to gay people. I think anybody in music who uses music to preach hatred is missing the point. I just think it’s really sad that black artists who have been through so much themselves, so much prejudice and suffering, can be trying to inflict that on gay people.” The bee in George’s bonnet is about more than just reggae though. He’s tired of gay culture being superficially appropriated without any actual gay content. “[Being gay is] my life. I’ve had to put up with straight culture for forty six years. I’ve been force fed since I was a child. It’s taken me a long time to kind of own who I am, and I’m certainly not going to apologise any more about it. And I do take the attitude of you know what, shove it in their faces. If they don’t like it, get over it.” On the other hand, George has no problem with straight people feeling ownership over gay culture: “They make it possible. It takes two of them to make one of us. We’re all in it together.” Kylie Minogue is currently firmly at the top on his list of heterosexual pals. He enthusiastically confirms rumours of a collaboration. “I’ve been working with Kylie, yeah. She’s adorable! Really, I’ve been totally converted. I’m Kylie-tastic!” Indeed, George has worked with Kylie not just on a song for her next album, but he was responsible for the shorts she wore to sing ‘Especially for You’ on her Showgirl Homecoming Tour. And this doesn’t just mean they were made by his label B-Rude, which by the way has just opened its first shop in London. “This is no word of a lie, I actually sat up and did those by hand. I sat up all night beading ‘cause we had to hand bead them all. They gave us all these Swarovski crystals. I remember Kylie called me when I sent them over the next day. She rang to say she loved them. I said ‘I haven’t been to bed yet, I’ve been up all night’, and she was like ‘You did them? You did them?’ She couldn’t get her head around the fact that I’d been up all night sitting there putting these beads on her trousers. I was pretty shattered and I said ‘Oh, I’m so pleased you called’ and started crying. And she said ‘You’re really soppy, aren’t you?” And I said, “Yeah I know. Don’t tell anyone.” Madonna, at least, is off the hook this time, as George feels he’s said enough about her already. “I’ve actually taken a vow of silence on Madonna… I realised recently that it overshadows what I do.” Still it’s clear he won’t be making her any hand beaded pants any time soon. He is more receptive to the idea of personalising the orange jump suit he was made to wear to pick up litter after his drug arrest in New York. “I tried to get the orange jacket they made me wear… they were so mean, they wouldn’t give it to me.” Still, it might not be such a loss, he observes: “I don’t look good in orange.” Emboldened by George’s frankness, and the warm, friendly tone he speaks in when he’s off his soapbox, I decide to see if he has any shame about his past at all. As he’s performing live in London soon, are there any of his past releases that he would never give voice to again? “I don’t really do ‘The War Song’, he says, laughing. As well as being as bona fide a gay icon as there is, Boy George seems like a fundamentally lovely man. Here’s hoping I can manage to get the words out before he starts talking about YouTube again. Boy George DJ’s with Kid Kenobi, MC Shureshock and many more Ministry of Sound and local DJ’s at Auckland’s St James Theatre on Friday 23rd February 2007. Weasel @ inthemix.com.au - 21st February 2007
Credit: Weasel @ inthemix.com.au
First published: Wednesday, 21st February 2007 - 12:00pm