KRAFTWERK'S MAN MACHINE ALBUM
“I thought the music sucked”.
Sounds 12th
August 1978
PERFORMING ON STAGE
“I don’t want to do
anything. I don’t see the point in going
out and jumping around and
looking dead emotional. It’s
only a song anyway. It’s not as
if you were in a play or
something. It’s a song, you’re
singing a song."
The Face 1980
REASON FOR TOURING
To me a live show is what you do
because you can’t get on TV.”
NME 12th July 1980
DANCING
"I'm strangly rhythmic - my top
half's very rhythmic, my
bottom half's very rhythmic, but I can't seem to
match them up"
Radio interview 1981
CONTEMPORAY BANDS
“I think I would rather die a
thousand deaths
than sound like Depeche Mode or Yazoo”
Record Mirror 1982
THE RUMOUR OF WORKING WITH
QUICY JONES
“ It was just to worry Martin
(Rushent), so he might reduce
his rates”
The Face 1982
THEIR FIRST
GROUPIE
“
She was like a potato with blonde hair!”
Perfect
Pop book 1982
THOMPSON TWINS WANTING TO BE THE
HUMAN LEAGUE
It stares out every time they go
on TV –
from their electro
disco to the funny haircuts,
funny clothes, a bit of make-up,
admitting that they’re pop
rather than pretending to be
something else and being big in
America.
Smash Hits 28th April 1983
GIORGIO MORODER
"He's just a geezer really,"
The Adelaide
Advertiser 5th September 1985
POPSTARS AND MOTORBIKES
I can’t stand all those pop
stars who just put bikes in their videos
–
bloody Simon Le Bon on the back of a bike… And Wham did that one where one
of them had Triumph on the back of his jacket. Disgusting!
No 1 1985
FRIENDS
I’ve never kept in touch with
people I’m not working
with
– that’s partly why I’ve got no friends!
No 1 1985
SUSAN’S DRIVING
“She’s binary in everything.
With her opinions everything
is
either marvellous or
abysmal and with her
driving you’re
either standing still or going very, very fast.”
Smash Hits 1986
MADONNA
“She looks like the bleedin’
Hulk with a wig on”
Smash Hits 1986
CHRIS DE BURGH’S WRITING “THE
LADY IN RED” ABOUT HIS WIFE
“What a poof!”
Smash Hits 1986
PHILIP ADRIAN WRIGHT LEAVING
“He bought a flat in London
about a year ago, you know,
and
I’m
more or less his oldest friend and he’s
never told me he
had a flat.
He never gave me the address,
he never gave me the phone number – and he’s never been unfriendly to me!”
Record Mirror 1986
HIS SINCLAIR C5 PEDAL-ASSISTED
VEHICLE
“I went out on it three or
four times at four in the morning so no
one would see me. This lady asked me
if I was an invalid”
Smash Hits 1986
WEARING HIGH HEELS
“I’ve got an extremely strange
walk. With me toes sticking
out,
you see.
But when I wear high heels, I walk
quite well.
Record Mirror 1986
FAME AND CARS
“When we first did this LP
(Crash) – before we went with Jimmy and Terry – we stayed at a hotel for two
and a half months, driving around in a Renault 4 van ‘cos Jim, the drummer, has got one. We’d
been number one in half the countries of the world, and I’m sitting in the
back of a Renault 4 van with no seats in it. I’m sitting on a tyre! And the guys who open doors
outside this hotel – they wouldn’t open the doors for us! You know, Where’s
The
Rolls?"
Record Mirror 1986
BEING A SINGER
“The only reason I’m a singer
in the first place is because I’m tall”
The Face 1986
PLAYING THE SAME VENUE TWO DAYS
IN A ROW
"Some people come to both both
concerts
and I've only got one set of clothes"
London gig, Hammersmith Odeon
13th january 1987
PET SHOP BOYS
“They’re alright. They’re the new
Human League
obviously. I’m intensely jealous of them.”
Melody Maker 15th September 1990
LIVE AID
All those pop stars
becoming to sickeningly, unbearably preachy and pompous… They really are
beginning to look physically disgusting. And they all like the Royal Family!
I can’t believe it!”
Melody Maker 15th
September 1990
THE RATE OF ALBUMS
The days of us being an
album-every-four-years band are over.
We’re gonna whack ‘em out by the year
from now on.
Melody Maker 15th September
1990
WORKING HARD
“One thing that we learnt
working along with Ian
Stanley
is
that you have to work
hard, whereas we we
had got
into the
habit of watching the TV really hard”
Sound On Sound Magazine 1995
MARIAH CAREY
“A lot of people think she’s
just another singer but she’s got something
… and what a stroke of luck
the day she swallowed that whistle”
Q Magazine 1995
HIS LONELY-HEARTS AD
"Ego-maniac requires someone who doesn't mind
living in a house where there
are slugs and mould inside
LAM Magazine 2001
LOSING THE FRINGE
“The only problem is that I
can’t be effeminate anymore. My girlfriend
still
insists
I’m gay. Every couple of days she’ll tell me I’m gay"
FHM Magazine 2001
BEING A HOSPITAL PORTER
“Brilliant, but where do you
go? They don’t pay you
much,
and it’s not like you’ll get promoted to be a
doctor"
FHM Magazine 2001
GETTING A PRINCE ALBERT
“It was embarrassing though,
because most piercers are butch skinheads. I got rejected by one lot. I went
to this shop in Chesterfield, and made the mistake of
wearing my frilly
shirt,
perfume and so on. The guy just looked at me and said, “Nope”.”
FHM Magazine 2001
THE DANISH FAN BASE
“We really should dedicate
this next song (Together In Electric Dreams)
to
our danish contingent. I
could recognise you anywhere”
Portsmouth gig, The Pyramids
28/11 2001
SURVIVING IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
"I think we’re the last page of the original Dark
Knight comic, where Batman is in an underground cavern with his followers
and he’s not wearing his costume anymore, He looks like he’s been beaten,
but he’s fighting back.
That’s where I think we are at the moment."
www.chartattack.com
22nd October 2002
THRIVE IN ADVERSITY
"But now it's quite hard to cope with no one wanting to be nasty to us. I'm
not sure it's good for creativity. Sadly even our rivalry with Heaven 17 has
passed. We see each other from time to time and remember the real laughs we
had together. We can't even keep that hatred up."
Daily Mirror 28th November 2003
NOT
HAVING CHILDREN
"To me, having children is like walking into a shop and saying, "I'll take
anything you want to give me - I don't care how it turns out. Oh, and here's
my bank account number - take as much money as you want'."
Daily Mirror 28th November 2003
THE
LOYAL FANS
"I have always had respect for our fans. At the very top of my list of
favourite people are those who buy tickets that say Human League on it and
second are those who buy our records."
Birmingham Evening Mail 18th December2004
GIRLS ALOUD
"I'm not here to knock them, but
the fact is that they are a bunch of Page 3 girls who release songs, not for
musical reasons, but as souvenirs - as another form of merchandise. It's
more important for them to stay in the gossip pages of the tabloids than
produce music."
Irish Times
2005
WRITING A
BIOGRAPHY
"If I told the truth, too many
people would have to die.
I know too much. Ha ha ha. Far
too much."
Irish
Times
2005
FIRST GIG
"I was sos cared that I could
only sing the
same verse of a song over and
over."
Hot Press 2005
MOST EMBARRASSING THING DONE
WHILE DRUNK
""Don't you know who I am"
moments....I ended up doing it
to the bouncers trying to get
into a Take That reception after
the show they were doing in
Sheffield. That is pretty bad."
Hot Press 2005
SONG PLAYED AT HIS FUNRAL
"The jingle from the first
Smith's salt and vinegar crips ad."
Hot Press 2005
ABOUT PERFORMING
I think it's probably quite embarrassing, a bit like your
dad dancing at a wedding, but
it's what we do.
Liverpool Echo 2005
FALLEN ON STAGE IN BRIGHTON 2003
"I skidded and sprawled on the floor. I was pretty thin at the time and when
I looked up I could see the audience thinking, Oh, that poor old man, I hope
he's not hurt himself, I hope he can get up."
The Brighton Argus 2005
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