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people might think he’s dead. He was diagnosed in 1991 – just days before the death of Freddie Mercury – and has been on combination therapy since 1996. “I didn’t think I’d be here talking about it now. At that time, the prognosis was very bad. Doctors would say things like ‘go on holiday now’, implying that it’d be your last chance. Part of the reason I went public was that it was a great deal of pressure on me and my partner Wolfgang; we’d get knocks on the door from The Sun. I did it and it closed a lot of doors. Kids shouted things like ‘Aids man!’ at me in the street. My mum and dad got door- stepped. It was even more difficult for my family because there was a great deal of stigma attached to it. It was like being a modern-day leper.” He found out who his friends were. “Artists were generally sympathetic. Kirsty MacColl came round the house. I got a call from David Bowie. Vini Reilly sent me music to write a song over.” A then little- known music executive called Simon Cowell even tried to sign him. “He’d seen me walking my dog on Parsons Green, and came knocking. I’ve got a soft spot for Simon as a result of that. He wanted me to do cover versions – and I’m a songwriter – so nothing happened, but it was nice of him to call when the rest of the industry had seemingly abandoned me.” It’s hard to over-estimate how huge Frankie… were. At one point, their first two singles, Two Tribes – a satire on the Cold War turning hot – and Relax, occupied the number one and two slots in the charts; their T-shirts were flying off the shelves and for the US launch of their debut album, Welcome To The Pleasuredome, they were driven through Los Angeles in a tank. Even before their split in 1987 – “I felt like we’d gone from subversive outsiders to a cheesy part of the pop machine.” Frankie Goes To Hollywood: subversive outsiders to cheesy pop precipitated by a backstage Wembley punch-up – fissures had started to appear. “I’d realised it was all over when the band refused to play Live Aid in ‘85. I wanted to but the manager and other members didn’t. In the same breath, they were talking about playing South Africa instead – during the apartheid period! I said: ‘You’ve got to be joking!’ I mean, when the record label started selling boxer shorts with the album, I felt like we’d gone from subversive outsiders to a cheesy part of the pop machine.” Solo albums followed, most notably the chart-topping Blast, which spawned the top five singles Love Train and Americanos. Then, at the turn of the millennium, Johnson returned to his first love by enrolling at the Royal College Of Art, having first turned down an art school place in his native Liverpool when Relax took off – he’s even responsible for the cover art for latest album Europa and the single In And Out Of Love. While his tour will see him sing hits like The Power Of Love alongside new material, and the 1980s is a decade that keeps rewinding, Johnson is keen to look forward and not succumb to retromania: don’t expect Frankie to say Reunite. “People imagine there are men with suitcases of cash offering you money to reform but it’s really not the case. There was one big offer recently but I’m too busy to even think about it. “I tend to think of Frankie Goes To Hollywood as a perfect pop moment that happened in the 1980s and it was a contextual pop band that was perfect in its time. “I feel that’s how it should remain rather than it being exhumed by five middle-aged men.” Then, he adds with rapier Scouse wit: “I’m already wearing the lamb – I don’t want people calling me mutton.” Holly Johnson plays the Auditorium, Liverpool, 24 Oct, and Manchester Academy 2, 25 October HOLLY JOHNSON ON… New album Europa “I didn’t expect to be making another record, but it’s happened organically over two years. The album’s like a retrospective of me as an artist: there’s a song that was originally recorded with Vangelis – who did the Blade Runner soundtrack – in the late 1980s, in a converted concrete bunker designed for Hitler’s occupation; a couple from the nineties; and some from the noughties. Even when I was having a break from the music industry I was still writing songs.” Gabrielle Aplin’s cover of The Power of Love topping the charts last year “I don’t want to comment on the version itself but it’s great that the song is being kept alive for a new generation. I would like those 16 and 17 year olds though to be aware of the original version, which I still feel is the definitive one.” Meeting Andy Warhol “That was a long-held dream since I was a teenager. Living in Liverpool, viewing his glittering world of superstars and the Velvet Underground, it just seemed so glamorous. He was charming and amusing – he wasn’t this vacant edifice some people describe him as. I asked him how we could get on the cover of Interview magazine and he said: ‘Oh Holly, I think you should sleep with the publisher.’ I said: ‘Who’s the publisher, Andy?’ And he replied: ‘I am.’” The pressure to remain in the closet: Marc Almond, God bless him, was the campest creature alive in the 1980s – but his PR person [now television personality] Mariella Frostrup encouraged him to stay in the closet and not make any definitive statement about his sexuality. Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant – who didn’t come out till 1994 – was very media-savvy and realised that as soon as you do you become ‘out gay pop star Holly Johnson’ in the tabloid media, like you’re an outrageous freak. They don’t say ‘avowed heterosexual Mick Jagger.’” the band was lock hters and your sons’ 19 20-26 0CTOBER 2014 · THE BIG ISSUE IN THE NORTH HOLLY JOHNSON BITN 1052_18,19 (holly johnson).indd 19 17/10/2014 12:33
