After a series of negative media headlines and a decade in which he describes himself as having ‘gone a bit mad’, Boy George, has grown up. Cliff Joannou meets one of the world’s most famous (some tabloids would tag ‘notorious’) gay men…
Where did the new album title ‘Ordinary Alien’ come from?
I was dreading that question. I suppose Ordinary Alien in a sense kind of sums me up in a way, because I think of myself as being quite ordinary but other people think of me being quite weird, so it’s a play on the two things.
There’s a part of me that feels outside, and I’ve always felt like that. And, you know, separate in a sense, even in the gay community and not just in life. I think there are some gay people who do feel on the outside of the outside.
I was going to come to that later, but as you raised it: how does it feel to be one of the most famous gay men in the world?
I don’t even think about that. In that respect where my fame is concerned I always feel slightly outside of myself like I’m looking in on me.
I definitely don’t see myself how other people see me in any way. It’s an interesting question but I don’t know how easy it is to answer, because what you see in the mirror and what other people see is often so contradictory.
How you think you are isn’t necessarily how other people see you.
I think for me one of the interesting things is – and this is quite a recent thing – because I have a bit of a reputation a lot of people say to me, “oh, you’re nothing like I thought you’d be”. I don’t know what they expect.
When you’re in the public eye, you always get a bit of that: what’s he really like; how’s he gonna be; is he gonna be difficult?
And I would say that, yes, I have been difficult in my life, but I think at the moment, I’m probably the least difficult I’ve ever been.
There’s been a lot of shifts in the way I look at things, in my attitude to what I do. I’m in a very different place now. Meeting me now is a very different experience to meeting me ten years ago, five years, even twenty years ago.
When I was younger I used to be quite adamant that people don’t change, but I know I’ve changed a lot. I haven’t lost the essence of who I am, but certainly the way I look at things has altered greatly.
If you could go back 30 years what advice would you give a young Boy George?
Calm down! [LAUGHS] I think when you’re young, you wouldn’t listen anyway. If I met myself 30 years ago I would have been so confident that I knew everything, that I had all the answers, that I wouldn’t have heard any good advice.
What I’ve learned as I’ve got older, you can make everything into a drama, you can make anything difficult if you put your mind to it. Equally, if you choose not to make things into a drama, it can be so different. It’s a choice.
I don’t think I would have known that or been able to understand that at 20, 25 or even 30 years old, I just wouldn’t have heard it.
I don’t know whether it’s an age thing, or because I’ve had some extreme experiences that I’ve come out the end of and I’ve been forced to look at myself. I just think it’s a gradual process.
A lot of it’s to do with recovery of course, being clean. It gives you a completely new clarity.
When you’re fucked up you don’t have perspective, you might think you do, but you have what can be described as a very skewiff perspective on things.
There’s a lot of things that have kind of affected the way I look at everything in my life.
How have those experiences contributed to this album?
The album has been made over a long period of time. There’s a track that was done with Nicky Holloway over 20 years ago – ‘Don’t Wanna See Myself’.
When I did it with Nicky, I didn’t like it and I never let him finish it. And when we were talking about doing the album I found the vocal and I said to myself, “actually this is great, what was I thinking?”
Having a clear head has enabled me to look at things and do a similar album to The Martyr Mantras. That was the idea behind it. And because I DJ more than I sing now, to make a record that related to what I do, made more sense.
How you think you are isn’t necessarily how other people see you.
How did you hook up with Kinky Roland?
In about 1990 and 95 I was DJing and I was playing a lot of records from Heidi Of Switzerland. I didn’t know that was also Roland at first and I found myself ringing him and saying do you wanna do a mix with me?
I like his approach to music, he’s quite melancholy, he’s quite passionate about what he does, he’s quite direct and that really works with how I work.
He’s a good mate and we’ve worked on a lot of stuff that wasn’t released, so it was a chance to put all that together.
You feature some strong political messages on this album, such as with the track ‘Yes We Can’. You even once wrote a song about Clause 28 [the 1988 law that banned the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools – now repealed]. Do you feel the world has moved to a better place in the last 30 years since you started recording music?
I would say my songs are more emotional than political. I get frustrated by ignorance. It surprises me that we’re still encountering some of that ignorance now.
That recent thing with the bed & breakfast [where a gay couple sued the Christian owners for denying them accommodation on the grounds of their sexuality] and what that’s brought up is so surprising to me as a gay man.
Back in the 80s we had a sense that we were really changing things, that people were becoming a lot more accepting and relaxed, and it seems to have gone full circle.
Yes, there are a lot of things that have changed for the better, but then these things come and up you think, what has really changed?
There are still some countries where people are still being killed for being gay, or going to prison for being gay. As Patti Smith said, there’s still a lot of work to be done.
I’ve just started this label for VG Records and a lot of stuff that I’m writing for that has more of a positive energy, like ‘Sunshine Into My Life’, that has some kind of a yearning for tolerance.
That’s always been something that’s driven me. When you are on the outside, you do see things sometimes in a more clear way, because when you’ve been pushed out a lot of your life you have a different take on things than most people.
You also comment on the music industry in your track, ‘Kill The A&R’. Has the industry lost its way? Or do we just see its flaws more today than before?
I think that element has always been there in music.
People coming along to gigs and not really listening, signing things because everybody else wants to sign them, not really having an emotional stake in that artist or that band; that has always been there, but I think it’s got worse.
The track is totally humorous, I’m not actually suggesting people should kill the A&R! [LAUGHS] What frustrates me about the music industry is the people that are supposed to be passionate about creativity are often so uncreative, so dismissive of people’s talent, people’s work.
With the changes in technology, people don’t seem to need record labels as much.
The obstacles are still the same, because the new machine is the internet. Although the internet does allow you access to your audience, it’s still the bigger artists that have the lion’s share.
It’s all about who can pay for the biggest exposure, who can post the bigger viral campaigns.
But there is another element to the internet, which I love, that gives you direct access to your audience. Things like Twitter, Facebook.
If I was 15 I would have gone mental to get a Tweet from Bowie or Marc Boland, so I do understand the power of that; that you can sit in your kitchen and send a tweet to somebody in outer Mongolia.
You celebrate 30 years in music next year. How will you commemorate the occasion?
We’re doing a Culture Club tour in 2012. I’m excited about it.
Whose idea was that?
Mine. Absolutely me.
You know about that awful attempt to replace me a few years ago? Actually at the time, it made me really angry, and then I kinda laughed because I thought what a ridiculous idea, because I’d never try and be Culture Club without the other three guys. I think the band is the sum of its parts.
What I’ve realised about the band in the last few years is there is a kind of magic about what we did and what we represent. And I don’t often understand it, but I think it’s really powerful.
I think because I’m in quite a good state of mind, I will actually have fun doing it, which I didn’t back in the day, because of what we talked about earlier.
Because you move on, you evolve…
You grow up! You say this could be fun, this could be a really enjoyable experience, so let’s all agree to make it one.
How was the recent Night of the Proms you performed at? Could you ever imagine yourself taking part in that 30 years ago?
Europe is another planet. They’re much more open-minded to older acts, but not here at all. It’s only your hardcore audience you can rely on; radio play isn’t a given.
They played ‘Somebody To Love Me’ [George’s recent hit with Mark Ronson], which was amazing. But I’m at a point in my career where I don’t rely on that stuff. It’s not that I dismiss the pop world, but I don’t belong to it. It has nothing for me.
I’ve got my thing, and I’m happy, and it works and I work. So I concentrate on that. If suddenly it gets played on the radio, that’s great, but I don’t expect it. I take a much more pragmatic approach to how I release records.
Your image is so central to you. Is it still something you enjoy playing with?
I enjoy it, absolutely. I enjoy wearing make-up, but I’m not bound and chained to it, most of the time I’m not in make-up. When I was younger I felt more obliged to look a certain way all the time.
Is that because you felt like an outsider?
Well, because it was all a bit brand new. I was much more worried about how I looked all the time, and I got over it. I kinda save the dressing-up for when I’m performing or going somewhere special now.
But then I’m generally much more comfortable with myself at this point in my life. I’m not as insecure as I used to be, a lot of those insecurities are gone. I’m just happy to be me, really.
How did you feel being forced into the closet at the beginning of your career? Did coming out as gay scare you at all?
The most important thing for me is that I came out to my family when I was 15, so I wasn’t in the closet. It’s one thing to be out to people that you love, it’s a whole other thing to be out to the whole universe. That’s a big step!
Do you think coming out at the beginning of your career would have changed it?
I wonder if it would have made a difference. The general view of that time was that if I made it public straight away, it would have damaged my career, but I don’t know now whether it would have.
I think you have to have more than being gay, that can’t be the only thing that you’re about.
The music is much more important than my sexuality, but at the same time I’m a very emotional performer, I write from an emotional point of view, so my sexuality is a huge influence on everything in my life, particularly musically. It informs a lot of what I do.
We were talking earlier about the B&B situation, what’s really annoying is that Christians always hone in on the sexual aspects of the gay relationship. It’s always about sex, because they’re obsessed about sex.
Forget that [the couple are] in love, they have bills to pay, or whatever else may going on in their world, it’s all about sex.
It’s nothing to do with gay people, it’s to do with straight people thinking all we are is sexual objects, and all we are about is sex, and that annoys the fuck out of me.
Is it hard to have a private life?
I’m much more protective than I’ve ever been. I wouldn’t say I was paranoid but I wouldn’t have done a lot of the things that I did in the beginning of my career.
Some of the things that I said, personal things that I said about people I went out with, I wouldn’t do now. I would think twice about it.
As an older man I think some things are private, some things are sacred.
When you’re young you think by having these outbursts it’s gonna change what’s going on, you think if you attack people maybe they’ll come running back.
It’s very weird the way you look at things when you’re younger, you think it makes a difference but it doesn’t, it just makes you look different.
Given the chance again, I probably wouldn’t have written the stuff about John [Moss, Culture Club drummer who George had a relationship with early on in their career]. I would have kept my mouth shut.
You’ve had a lot of ups and downs, highs and lows. How did you use them to get where you are now…
In the 90s I had a ten-year glorious period when I was grounded and I would say spiritually tuned, then I went off the boil again and went a bit mad. [LAUGHS]
I’d like to sit here and say that you learn from your mistakes, certainly I hope that’s the case this time around. I just look at things in a very different way.
I operate in a very different way. I made some major changes to my lifestyle as well, and hopefully that will carry me forward. I’ve had enough of drama.
I don’t blame anybody. I am responsible for everything that’s happened to me, I don’t say, “oh, it’s your fault.” It’s my fault.
I made some really bad choices, some really bad moves. But right now things are brilliant and I hope they stay that way. And it’s a choice, you have to make a choice.
How do you keep focused and stay positive?
At the moment, I‘m really focused on my work. I’m feeling passionate about music again, I’m writing a lot.
I feel passionate about it again, and I didn’t a while back, I didn’t have that feeling. I think that’s come back through recovery, through getting clean.
A lot of my friends are in recovery. A lot of my friends are in a very similar situation. We’ve kind of partied ‘til it’s got boring and now we all have a slightly different perspective on things.
What has changed over the years?
I think proximity. A lot of it’s who you associate with. I think if I’m around drugs, they become a temptation.
I think at this point I am able to say, “I am an addict, I have a compulsive, addictive nature, therefore I must always be vigilant and do everything I can to avoid that.” That’s all I can do. It’s a daily thing.
Working the twelve step programme, going to meetings. All the things that twenty years ago I would have found abhorrent, that it’s really American, and found all the negatives in it. I’ve luckily come to a point in my life where I see the value in it.
One of the great things about NA is that you meet lots of really great people that you maybe wouldn’t have associated with prior to getting clean.
Addiction makes you really suspicious of people, fame makes you really suspicious of people. And so when you can be around people in the same situation, very often with very different lives, it gives you faith in humanity again, you think actually people are great.
I have to say I’m quite lucky, because people are always quite nice to me, I get a lot of love off people and that’s always been the case, no matter what’s been going on in my life. I’ve always been lucky in that respect.
Boy George’s new album, Ordinary Alien – The Kinky Roland Files, is available now on Decode Records.