Liverpool Kiss

Rip It Up, Issue 113, 1 December 1986, Page 14

Liverpool Kiss

Frankie on the Mersey

Why in this world must we live life like a deal? Sometimes I feel it’s all make-believe... — ‘Happy Hi,’ 1985

Ped Gill, one of “the lads” who would like to thank British Telecom, God and Levi Strauss for their first album, has an answerphone as blurred and as intimidating as any other answerphone and it’s taking up about eight dollars worth of Festival New Zealand’s time.

“John,” it crackles at the cost of a few beers, “If ye ring... I'm over at th ’ offiss... T’deey’s Frideey soo ring in case ah cum back early ... T’ra.” For the cost of two EP’s I learn that Ped Gill has an accent as thick as my socks and that he’s not at home. Where can he be? In fact, where are Frankie Goes To Hollywood? Memories reveal Katherine Hamnett’s CHOOSE LIFE t-shirts, Ron and Chernenko slugging it out in a Godley & Creme video and Trevor Horn’s collage# dance-production, but we still don’t know who Frankie is. Which also explains why no one group or individual (save for a false alarm by Sigue Sigue Sputnik) has made a grab for the role in Frankie’s absence; after a debut double album Welcome To The Pleasure Dome and several singles, the group’s character has only just begun to flesh itself out. Holly Johnson’s smiling face has been filling the pages of a press which he once shunned as a result of its “anti-homosexual” remarks. The band which seemed to have more drum machines than members got into Time for their Springsteen cover (‘Born To Run’) and easily acquitted themselves as live performers. Hot damn, an old fashioned rock-band after all. And just to prove it, they vandalised a stage live on television for the

1986 Montreaux Rock Festival. The lads posing, the drum kit in pieces and the pre-recorded single, ‘Rage Hard,’ still chugging away. ZTT took out full-page advertisements to publicise both the demolition and the single. For a while it may have looked like Queen and Frankie had a lot in common but for the moment Freddy Mercury’s remark that that FGTH are “the sort of thing that gives rock a bad name” is just what the lads need to revive their smart-arse image.

“We’d been at this Montreaux festival," recalls a cheery Ped (when I do eventually get him on the phone). “We got there on the second-to-last night and it was just a big ... [annoyed pause]... It was all these pop-stars playing super pop-stars. I think it got on our nerves — they’re the same as anyone else and they’re standin’ round sticking their noses up at the people. “It was just funny when we were gettin’ on stage and it was getting on our nerves that we were pulling all these pop-star things — we’re just normal. So we thought, ach, we don’ wanna look too drastic, and then we thought, oh, [chuckles] we might as well do the smashin’ the equipment number, that should get ’em going, like. So we did that. We weren’t try in t’ be different or noth-

ing, we were just trying to wake people up to all these other people standing on the stage caked in makeup, with y’ diamonds and your gold and y’big lurex suits ... We thought we’d just have a laff.” This, from the band that urged us to “live life like a diamond ring” — how things have changed. Paul Morley is described with vicious charity by Ped as a man “who has good ideas for sleeves”. Trevor Horn is not the buggle-eyed manipulator of NME editorials but a “quiet” person who “hardly talks about music at all”. And Frankie Goes To Hollywood are just a band, a band who want to write “good songs” and deflate the world of pompous pop stars. But ahh, I ask, quick-as-a-flash-rock-journo-style; weren’t Frankie overproduced popstars once? “Aye,” says Ped, unperturbed, “We were. But it worked, didn’t it?” And it gave you a lot of time to learn.

“Yeah, it gave us a lot of time, but we didn’t want to get stuck in the rut of being over-produced. We wanted to be able to change whenever we wanted to.’’ ‘Roadhouse Blues' on the Rage Hard EP sounds quite spontaneous. How long did that take to record? “Three hours.”

“We tried something new — 10 songs and an album. And they’re good songs. You’ve gotta have that in the first place, because ye can’t produce a piece of shit, can ye? We didn’t need that over-production for the first album but...” But it didn’t hurt. "... Yeah. The last album was slightly Pink Floyd — I don’t know if you can see what I’m trying t’ say...the Pleasure Dome type things, the sound effects. Heavily influenced. I like old 70s rock bands, I used to be mad on Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Holly was

more into funk and soul and Paul the disco — all that mixing in and that’s what sorta came out. “The new album isn’t as glossy as the last one — there is production but it’s not so over the top. You’d listen to the album for the songs and not the sound-effects. “Steve Lipson is producing and Trevor Horn is executive producer, which meant that he'd come in every couple of weeks and give his opinion, and sometimes he says That’s Really Good and sometimes he says, ‘Uh, if I were you...' We follow his advice. He’s not like people would imagine him. He’s very quiet, he’ll just sit there and chat away about things besides music while things are getting done. He’s not music-music-music do-that do-this ... he’s quite a casual person, really.”

Why call the new album Liverpool? Why the sudden reminiscence?

“To try and put Liverpool back on the map a bit, and so people could remember what it is and where it is. You can relate a lot of the songs to Liverpool. I suppose you could relate them to other towns which are in a sort of depressed, unemployed state. And no other successful band from Liverpool has ever called an album Liverpool." You've been very successful. ‘‘ I was unemployed for two years before all this happened to me,” says Ped, sucking in his breath, “so I know what it feels like. ” I say it was a big rise to stardom and Ped Gill sounds very, very, bitter. “Aye. It was a big rise for me, like, but thousands of other people weren’t so lucky.”

“If I wanted to be suave I wouldn’t throw wet toilet rolls out of the window at people’’ — Ped Gill, Pleasure Dome notes, 1984 “We try and not get too bigheaded and pretentious — we try and keep ourselves down to earth and have a laugh the way we would have before this happened. Don’t get out of control, like." Brian Nash has said that if this album doesn’t work, he’ll give it three months. “’As ’ee??” Yep. “Three months?” Yes. “We wouldn’t even know how many records we’d sold in three months. I think we’ll have another chance — we can’t have so much success and just die. It’s a new thing starting now. It’s not like it's been Frankie for two years — if we’d carried on, by now people’d be sick of us. Because we were so energetic and like, we just punched y’ between the eyes when we done it — too much of that and people’d say, ‘Oh, I’m sick of that.’ But with this break, we can come back with a punch again.” Still energetic? “Yeah.” Ped Gill laughs. “The average age of the band’s 23.” Really? “Yeah. That old."

Chad Taylor