Clash spent some time with returning ‘80s electro-pop dons the Pet Shop Boys recently. You can read our full interview with the pair in the current issue of Clash magazine, but here’s a wee taster to whet the appetite…
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With their arms raised sky-high towards the deluxe ceilings of Shoreditch House, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are swirling their hips around repeatedly while spluttering enthusiastically about the gig they attended the night before.
Seeing ’80s icon Grace Jones has left the British legends higher than Amy Winehouse, and as they impersonate the hula-hoop-mastering Jones, one can’t help but warm to the pure over-indulgence of the private extravaganza.
“She had lasers!” Chris Lowe had earlier rhapsodised. “Ah, SU-PE-RB! God, I love lasers. I thought, ‘Why don’t we see more lasers?’ Every club used to have them! Just standing in the lasers! Ah, so great, aren’t they? And so that was when I thought, ‘This is what I like in life’. I like the hedonism, I like the… You know, socialising! I love the music, and it all came together…”
Lowe’s excitement is contagious, and makes his otherwise middle-aged face appear young. He’s casually dressed in a hoodie and jeans, and becomes strikingly more camp in the presence of his long-time musical partner Tennant. Their inherit conversational timing is precisely what you would expect of a duo who’ve been constantly in each other’s company for over twenty-five years, but there’s no evidence of their longevity as buddies spoiling. They are Britain’s first gentleman of disco, and in 2009 the Pet Shop Boys are the unlikely, yet no less worthy, recipients of the BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution To Music.
“We never go!” says a reluctant Chris Lowe. “We only go to awards if we got one, that’s our policy. We don’t really approve of awards – they’re a bit too much like a school prize-giving, aren’t they? It’s something that we just rebelled against at the time… It’s not why you do something, is it?”
The man’s sincerity is sound, as Lowe infamously stayed at home on the night of the Pet Shop Boys’ first BRIT award win in 1987, a protest of omission that he, even today, remains unapologetic about. “I didn’t go to the first one because I don’t approve of awards. I was being consistent. ‘West End Girls’ got an award and I stayed at home and watched it on television. I watched Neil get the award. None of that, ‘Unfortunately he can’t be with you’; it’s just like, ‘I don’t want to be there!’” he says before erupting into a fit of laughter.
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The full Pet Shop Boys feature can be read in the current issue of Clash magazine, out now. For more information click HERE.
The Pet Shop Boys’ new single ‘Love Etc’ is out now, and their new album ‘Yes’ is released on March 23.
