Boy George explains why a lot of people hate his top hit, 'Karma Chameleon', what it's like going back on tour with Culture Club and the reason behind his fued with Duran Duran. #boygeorge #duranduran #cultureclub #80s #80smusic Subscribe for regular entertainment! http://bit.ly/1qyfc2T Watch videos in full + exclusives here: https://thisisheart.co/heartglobalplayer Honest Celebrity Interviews: https://thisisheart.co/honestinterviews Music Artists: https://thisisheart.co/3YVm8wN Film and TV Stars: https://thisisheart.co/filmandtv _ We're the UK's biggest commercial radio brand creating memorable moments with the most recognised names in entertainment!
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Do you know what? In the 80s, I think all of those bands, there was a lot of sort of rivalry
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You know, actually, I love Simon. He's probably my favourite journey after Roger the Drummer
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Yeah, we definitely had a few scuffles. Heart 80s Breakfast with Simon Beal. It is such a pleasure to welcome a true music icon
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You might know him as part of the 80s band Bow Wow Wow for about three weeks
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He's probably better known as lead singer of Culture Club and still doing it 43 years later. Amazing
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Boy George, good morning. Good morning. How are you? I'm gorgeous. Was it just three weeks that you were in Bow Wow Wow
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Maybe three months, but there's some gaps. So was you starting Culture Club like revenge for being thrown out of Bow Wow Wow
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Or was it just you were determined to do your own thing? It was a little bit of revenge
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But also, I decided before I joined Bow Wow Wow that I was going to do music
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You know, I'd kind of, you know, sort of the end of punk. And all my friends were in bands, Spaniel Ballet
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Sade was starting out. There were a lot of people doing music. And I thought, I'm going to do that
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Listen, so much to talk to you about. First up, new solo album. It's called SE18
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It is out now. What I've heard of this, by the way, I love. Your vocals are sounding so good at the moment
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Thank you. What can you tell us about this album? I went off albums for a while
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And then I suddenly thought, you know, albums are great. They're like books. You can tell a story
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You can, you know, so what I do is I just keep writing. And then every so often I go, oh, that feels like an album
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so I will be and also because it's my first vinyl only release
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it's vinyl and CD only no streaming so why have you done that
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because streaming is a waste of my time you know the most streamed song last year
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was The Crying Game I didn't even write it I mean it's great but it's so interesting
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I think my fans want product yeah I feel like it's it's just a bit more
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personal than a stream so if people want to get hold of the album and the CD
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is this where they go to is it Elastic Stage? Elastic Stage which, and funnily enough, when I first put an EP up on there about six months ago
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and they took it down, because I was like, they didn't believe it was me. Boy George's new solo album called SE18, it is out now, you can get it via Elastic Stage
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And actually staying in the South East London thing, Culture Club headlining the Uptown Festival on Blackheath, Sunday the 27th of July
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This is very much on the sort of doorstep of your old stomping ground. Doing a gig there, is that quite special for you, being in that part of London
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Yeah, I mean, listen, when I was 17, I ran screaming from South East London
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vowing never to go back, you know. But then over the years, when I started DJing
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I started doing a lot of clubs like, you know, Bexley Heath and Dartford. And suddenly, from sort of being chased out of Woolwich
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they were like, you're one of us! You know, it was like I kind of got embraced again through the rave scene
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And, you know, obviously, I'm older now, and, you know, I look at, you know
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my sort of teenage years with a bit more sensitivity and nostalgia so I feel like you know i comfortable with being from the southeast so what can we expect from a culture club gig because
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i know you did this tour at the end of last year with tony hadley and heaven 17 where you did your
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first two albums in their entirety yeah so you said the set list was sorted already easy no
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arguments yeah how do you decide what you're gonna now we now that we've played those songs we're now
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adding them into the set which the fans love so we're not sticking to the format of the records
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but we're like we're doing white boy and we're just i feel like sometimes with culture club i
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was always the one saying why are we not doing stuff from this album why did we only ever do that
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you know and it's like you've got so much stuff that the fans you know they want to hear calmer
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chameleon but they also want to hear like the dive or they want to hear something random like a b-side
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like something like Love Is Love they're so mistake number three it's interesting when you ask the fans
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they always come up with like the weirdest B-side stuff you've forgotten about
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yeah like don't even remember so when you come to decide where you place
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the big songs like Come A Chameleon do you always do it at the end
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is it always the big finale? on my tour last year I opened with it in a few places
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you've never seen people running so quickly into it can we talk about Come A Chameleon
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because I think just the size of success for this, this is one of the biggest
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selling songs in the UK ever. It just takes people back to a time in their lives
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where perhaps they were more innocent, but it's also one of those songs that everyone hates
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Like I did my friend's wedding a few weeks ago, Fat Tony, I did his wedding
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and he said, will you sing? I said, yeah. He goes, whatever you do, don't sing, I'm a comedian
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I said, I'm absolutely singing it, because your mum is going to be there, and this is not for you
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And it was so funny, because he was like, you were right to sing it. Well, didn't you say even the band didn't like it
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When you first performed it to them, and said, here's the tune. They weren't so keen. No, they weren't keen at all
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because it was sort of country and, you know, they were into Shalamar and they were into, like..
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Basically, Culture Club always wanted to be in Joran Joran. Right, OK. Fact of life
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They always wished they were in Joran Joran, but tough they weren't, you know? Yeah. Is this where your riff with kind of Simon Le Bon came from
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Because I know when you met to do Band-Aid and you put your arm around him
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which was a really significant move to sort of show the press, listen, we're laying our egos at the door here
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Is that where that stemmed from? Do you know what? in the 80s, I think all of those bands
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particularly, we all thought we were like the best. We all thought everyone else was rubbish and how dare they have hits
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And it was a lot of rivalry. But, you know, actually, I love Simon
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He's probably my favourite journey after Roger the Drummer. I feel they're my two favourite journeys
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But, yeah, we definitely had a few scuffles. There was this one time I was in Paris
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I made some comment about one of his girlfriends and he stood up and told me to apologise
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And I was like, no. and my heart was pounding, it was going to beat me up
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You were playing your stubborn card And then later on obviously when we did Band I saw him and we were like oh whatever you know I mean I been to see them a lot Actually that Band day it did feel like everyone just put everything aside
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It was quite unique. It must have been quite a whirlwind for you because you obviously turned up quite late in the day
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flying in on Concorde, having been in New York. I mean, it's amazing when you think about it
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And yet, what did you soak up from those few hours that you were there? Well, first of all, I didn't know what I was going to do
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It was a bit like Bob had called me, he was Irish
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I was like, he's a good Irishman. My mum would like him. Okay, he wants me to come and do this
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So I was like, okay, you know, I went. And like everyone, I really didn't know
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what I was walking into. It was only when you got there and you go
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oh, okay, everyone's here, like everyone. Let's just talk about some of your other early hits
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because something I hadn't realised until the other day was every song you put out at that point
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was top three, top four. So Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? Obviously, number one, Time Clock at Heart
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which I love, number three. Church of the Boys and Mine, number two. Come and Chameleon, number one, everywhere
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Victims was number three. It's a Miracle was number two. Warsong was number two. When you hit that level of success
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do you feel a bit like, well, we'll do everything right here now
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We've got the path set straight. There must be a level that draws you into a
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we're untouchable. I don't think so. I think it's the opposite. I think that, you know
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when you write songs and you get caught up in that chart thing
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you get pressure and suddenly it's like nothing's good enough you know the last album sold this and
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this one didn't sell as much it is a pressure that you know kind of can get in the way of
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creativity there's too much competition now i think you compete with everyone but there's a
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freedom now that you didn't have then which i really enjoy like you know because you can write
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about anything there's nothing stopping you writing about whatever you want so do you feel
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more creative as a result now yeah because i've i think i've learned to get out of my own way i
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you know everything i hear i write down if someone says something funny i go that's a good line you
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know and i've got great people around me so just any the iphone just write stuff down you know
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don't think you're going to remember it if you hear a great line write it down yeah see this is
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where i'll be a terrible songwriter because i think if i started writing something that this is quite good i would quickly realize it's something i've heard before or it's been written if you look
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I think song titles, one of the things about being a Bowie fan and a Mark Boland fan is that growing up
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they had the most insane song titles. You've got the other one who'd be like, she was born to be my unicorn
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You know Gary Barlow's not going to write that. So look for things that other people won't write
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That's why Bowie was great, because he had a wide palette of what he wrote about
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He wrote about really interesting things. I found out so much about other artists
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Bob Dylan Lou Reed Iggy Pop poets like Kehil Gabran And there so many things I discovered through listening to Bury Records because he would write mad lyrics Yeah And that what I try to do I write about things that mean something to me
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Can we just do some quick fire questions to add on? Okay. How many hats do you have
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Probably about 600. Do you really? Yeah. They're everywhere in cupboards. I was just saying
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Open the stock drawer and there's a hat, you know, under the bed, they're everywhere. How many do you take on tour with you
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Do they stack inside each other? Does that help? I've got like these big massive drum boxes
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and it's hilarious because you travel and obviously they always open them
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and they always say, what are they? And you're like, hello. You've never seen a happy one
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You have worked with so many famous people. Do you ever get starstruck
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Oh yeah, I mean, you know, I sang with Stevie Wonder and I was like, oh my God, what am I doing
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I was so terrified. I was like literally just like shaking in my boots. Lufa Vandross
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Wow. Dion Warwick. I've sung with some amazing people and I wish I could do it now Yeah
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Because when I was like 21 I was like so scared and I'd be like come on let's do it
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Bring it on What about the first time you met Bowie? That must have been overwhelming
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It was so beautiful and so exactly what I wanted I just you know like
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sometimes you meet people and you think oh I wish I hadn't met them but in the case of David Bowie
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he was so charming I mean I was sitting there going oh my god
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trying to be really cool talking about we had this mad conversation about Russian art movies
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and ended up talking about EastEnders because he used to ask me what was going on in London
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and what was going on in EastEnders he was very funny I love the normality of him
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very funny and I remember I said to him he asked me about Steve Strange
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he goes where's Steve Strange he's living in Wales with his mother who's got a massive beehive
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and he goes well you'd need one wouldn't you if you're living in Wales he was a very funny man
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what a beautiful thing for that to be like your dream come true and then it's as great as you
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to not be disappointed absolutely you know yeah no great it was amazing and one final question
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what advice would you give to your 1980s self enjoy what's happening you know don't be indifferent
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you know don't bring anxiety to it you know because actually you're lucky you know you're
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in a room with frank sinatra it's like be there yeah don't zone out and worry about your hat or
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whatever so a lot of the things that i used to really worry about when i was younger i just
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doesn't even come into my mind now i'm a happy person so good to hear and so good to see uh the
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new boy george album se18 is out on cd and vinyl via elastic stage and you can see boy george with
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culture club headlining at the uptown festival in blackheath on sunday july the 27th good luck
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with the album and it's great to see you thank you so much it was a lovely interview thanks
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