Dead Or Alive, February 1981

"I think the audience notices everyone, because I spend so much time on the floor."

Photo © Francesco Mellina

This was the second interview I’d done with Pete Burns and the first under the name Dead Or Alive. Despite the emphasis here on the band as an actual band, Dead Or Alive went through various lineup changes over the years, with Pete the only constant.

Drummer Joe Musker became a bit of a legend in Liverpool, partly for the number of people he has played with and partly for his charity work. In 1985 he ran a charity event called Drums Over The Mersey, and last year he organised his 32nd charity “drumathon”.

This article is a classic example of words getting lost in translation. I’d described Sue and Mitch as from “over the water” which is Scouse for the Wirral peninsula (on the other side of the River Mersey from Liverpool). The Melody Maker sub-editor made them “American”.

Thanks to Francesco Mellina for permission to reproduce his photos.

Glamour without the Blitz

Melody Maker, February 28, 1981

Are you ready for Pete Burns of Dead or Alive, transvestite sex symbol? Penny Kiley breaks you in gently. Pix: Francesco Mellina

WRITING about Dead Or Alive without mentioning Pete Burns is like writing about the Mo-dettes without mentioning that they're all girls.

It shouldn't make any difference, but it can't be avoided. Pete is one of a new breed (I hope) to bring back excitement and (dare I say it) glamour to a music business that's been taking itself far too seriously again.

He's also, in some people's eyes, a bit of a freak. But it should be stated straight away that he's many miles away from the Blitz movement, geographically or spiritually.

Peter lives and works in Liverpool, and it was there, almost exactly a year ago, that I witnessed one of the most exciting gigs I would see that year.

A band of misfit musicians creating a wall of noise that was gloriously unmusical, and over the top of it a big voice that was gloriously and amazingly musical, a voice that made all other Jim Morrison comparisons redundant, and this voice emanating from some sort of monster. I forget what he was wearing that night (this is important) but I'll never forget the performance.

The group was Nightmares In Wax, the singer Peter Burns, and since that time he's found a band worthy of his talent as a performer, a new name for them, Dead Or Alive, and an audience that appreciates what he's doing.

Nightmares In Wax had a little attention. An EP was released on Liverpool's Inevitable records, and a track lifted from it appeared on the "Hicks From The Sticks" compilation album. But the A side, "Black Leather" wasn't really representative and didn't help to do anything about Pete's misunderstood image.

A lot of people missed the humour in the song, and tongue in cheek — Pete described himself as "a transvestite sex symbol."

In the course of a year, a change took place, and Dead Or Alive were born. It was a slow process, and there were times when it seemed the group would never be more than star (plus sidekick) and a transient collection of unsuited musicians and ambitions in the Liverpool school of procrastination and clashing egos.

But somehow, Dead Or Alive evolved. They took shape when Pete Burns and Marty Healy (keyboards) met up with Sue and Mitch, American bass- and guitar-players respectively.

The two newcomers couldn't have been more unlikely with their youthful fresh-faced normality and their background in various Wirral bands like the Stopouts and the Upsets, and at first it seemed that their approach was totally at odds with what Pete and Marty were doing.

"We rehearsed next door to them," recalls Sue, "and we used to scream laughing at them and they used to laugh at us." So how did they ever get together?

"Our electricity was off one day, so we went in their room. Three of them rolled up - the ex-drummer, Marty and Pete - so we jammed with them. They didn't have a bass player or guitarist..."

"And we were without work," continues Mitch. "We split up the Upsets and were just hanging around looking for a job. We weren't in a band at the time and there was an offer, simple as that."

THE hand of fate was even more prominent in the case of drummer Joe Musker, who had previously been playing cabaret with the Fourmost and literally bumped into the other members of the band by accident, wandering into the wrong room.

"It's the only way to learn, in cabaret," says Joe, "but you're limited to what you can play — every night for a year, the same show for years doing the same thing." Money and travel weren't enough to keep him doing this.

"When I left, everyone said you're stupid. But I love this, and I am going to stay, as long as I can."

It's an unlikely combination of unlikely people, but it seems to be working. Suddenly things are moving for the band. Their new single "I'm Falling/Flowers", again on Inevitable, is selling steadily. They've made their first TV appearance, on Granada TV's arts programme, "Celebration", and recorded a session for John Peel. And their fans in their home town are growing fast.

Image has been a problem in the past, where people have thought of Dead Or Alive as simply "Pete Burns’ group", and Pete Burns as some kind of a monster. Some people were attracted by this, but mostly it had the opposite effect.

Says Mitch: "The band isn't together because of weirdness or anything like that. Pete is what he is, he's been like that for years, but we're not going to change for Pete. The band isn't that big, and each member has their own identity. Everybody appeals to somebody in the audience somewhere."

"I think the audience notices everyone," says Pete, "because I spend so much time on the floor." Pete cavorts on stage, he sweats, he rolls on the floor - the last thing he does is worry about his appearance.

Like a cross between Bette Midler and Jim Morrison, he introduces a combination of outrage and arrogance, camp self-parody and aggression, ugliness and sex appeal, and above all drama.

WHEN Dead Or Alive are on stage you realise that fun hasn't totally been squeezed out of music. The group has recently taken to playing surrounded by lighted candles. At their last gig Pete ate two of them (still lighted). The first by accident (he claims), the second to prove to himself that he couldn't possibly have eaten the first. At the same gig Marty's keyboards caught fire. Marty carried on playing. I don't think he'd noticed.

This group insist on breaking down barriers. It's something Pete's always been aware of and something he's always had to struggle against. Because his particular personal flamboyance has always tended to magnify the barriers that already exist in every human relationship, he tries harder than most people to destroy them. It's something the rest of the band appreciates.

Pete: "I never never did want to shock. I just thought 'You've got some kind of hang-up so I'm going to make it worse.' If people dislike you because of something you're doing on stage they've all got really bad hang-ups because you're pissing on their religion for some reason.

"If people get hang-ups, instead of trying to numb them they should magnify them out of proportion to the point where they become hilarious.

"I'm not making a statement by looking the way I do. I just really do like to look and see what I want to see, if I want something and it pleases me to see that in the mirror then I'd do it — say I wanted to look like a table, by some way I'd look like a table."

Pete's a cult figure now, at least locally. But he swears that, though fashion may be smiling on him now, he's part of no movement.

"The weirdos are so faddy, you know, one week you're trendy, the next week you're not. The ordinary people that aren't just coming because it's fashionable, they're going to be the ones who will keep you, they're the ones who'll be loyal."

The rest of the band are equally strong in their rejection of identification with certain movements.

"One thing I really despise," says Mitch, "is when people dress up for stage, to look weird for the sake of the cameras. It's commercial cashing in, being freaky for the sake of being freaky. There's a lot of that happening now, but this band's no part of it, that's one thing we're not."