In conversation with Boy George

It didn’t take long for Boy George to become one of the most easily recognizable pop stars on the planet when his band Culture Club exploded on to the scene in the early '80s.

The androgynous singer was front and centre for the soulful music group as it sold some 50 million copies worldwide of its four albums from that decade and released a string of hit singles, including “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me,” “Time (Clock of the Heart),” “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya,” “Church of the Poison Mind,” “Karma Chameleon” and “The War Song.”

Culture Club disbanded, although it reunited to tour and make a new album in the late '90s before the four members drifted apart again. The man born George O’Dowd has spent much of the past 20 years recording on his own, travelling the world as a DJ, writing two autobiographies and becoming tabloid fodder for his well-publicized drug addictions and legal problems. He was ordered to pick up garbage in New York City after being convicted of falsely reporting a burglary and, more significantly, served four months of a 15-month prison sentence after being convicted of assault and false imprisonment in England.

Boy George has just released “Ordinary Alien,” a 15-track dance music record that’s his first solo album of new material in more than 10 years. He’s also announced that Culture Club will reform to record a new album and tour next year to mark the group’s 30th anniversary.

While it’s odd to call a 49-year-old man Boy, George seemed to be in youthful spirits and often punctuated his sentences with laughter during a recent phone conversation from his home in England. Here’s how our chat went:

Why is “Ordinary Alien” your first artist album of new material in more than 10 years?
“I don’t know, really. There’s been no particular reason. Sometimes things just happen. I stopped working with Virgin and wasn’t really interested in working with a label. For the past 10 years, I’ve sort of been doing my own thing and putting things on the Internet and doing things independently. But I kind of decided that it was time to work with a label again. I’m working with an independent label, which is very different from working with a major label. There’s less pressure and things get done. I think I just got kind of bored with things not getting done properly. Working with a label again and doing this album with a label has been brilliant.”

When you say “not being done properly,” what do you mean by that?
“If I’d been working with a label, there wouldn’t have been a 10-year gap. If I’d been working with a label, somebody would have said, ‘Can you please go make a record.’ Having a deal puts you back on that treadmill to a certain extent so you can get on with things. I think I’m ready to do that now. I’ve spent long enough being left to my own devices, so now I’m looking forward to putting out albums regularly.”

Does “Ordinary Alien” describe the way you see yourself?
“I think that people have a lot of misconceptions about me. Some of them are true and some of them are not. When you’re in the public eye, you’re constantly wading through people’s misconceptions of you. I am a bit weird. I accept that. But it’s not necessarily because of the way I look, but because some of the ideas I have about the world are kind of odd and alien. But at the same time, I’m just an ordinary person who’s had a lot of sh*t written about me that isn’t necessarily true. That can work in your favour sometimes because people will say, ‘You’re nothing like I thought you’d be.’ So the album title sums up some things about me. I’m the kind of alien you can bring home to your mother.”

“Yes We Can” from the new album samples a Barack Obama speech. Is he, or at least was he, an inspiration to you?
“I was really moved by his whole kind of rise and it was really hard not to be emotionally affected by that. I think he’s a good guy. I don’t know whether he’s going to be successful long-term, but I think he has integrity.

“When we made the record, we wanted to make it like the early dance records that got me into dance music. There was that great record with Martin Luther King, ‘I Have A Dream,’ which was a big record when I first got into dance music in the late ‘80s. I wanted to make a record like that, and Obama definitely had that kind of quality in his speeches. He was very quotable and has a great sound to his voice. It also related to what I was going through personally. I call that song my recovery song because I wrote it when I first got clean from drugs and drink. It’s a really positive song, and I think Obama’s message was really positive. I was really moved by that.”

Was “If I Were You” written about anyone in particular?
“I’m not going to say who it’s about. But it could apply to so many people, probably even myself in some respects. But I never thought that I was beautiful. My face always came out of a jar, and it still does. But the song is about regret. It’s not about anyone in particular, but it’s about a lot of people. It’s just part of human nature, I suppose. The thing about songs is that everyone’s going to interpret them in their own way, and that’s their right.”

Why did you cover Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” on the new album?
“I was asked to take part in Night of 1,000 Stevies in New York about five years ago, and I spent a week going through all of these Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac songs, and I couldn’t find anything that I thought I could do well. And then shortly before we did that event, we were messing around with ‘Go Your Own Way’ on acoustic guitar and did it in a reggae style that seemed to suit my voice. That’s where it started. I had to find a song to do for this event in New York and ended up recording it. I love the song. It’s such a great song. It’s the kind of song I would have written if I was in Fleetwood Mac.”

I don’t see any North American dates on your itinerary. Why?
“I can’t get in to North America at the moment. They won’t let me in, but I’m working on that. I’m hoping that by next year, if not sooner, they’ll give me a visa. It’s because of my past. But I remain optimistic and have people working on it right now. Anything can happen.

“Since I went to New York and swept up New York, I think they should let me back in. I could have not gone and I could have been a fugitive, but I came back because I really wanted to be able to work in America. Rehabilitation is supposed to be about bringing someone back to their rightful place in society. That’s what it means, if you look in the dictionary. But if you don’t let someone move on, how are you going to find out if they’ve been rehabilitated? I know I am. But until I can do what I do and travel as a free person, who’s going to know?

“I can go to most places. There are one or two places that won’t let me in right now, but that will change. Life goes on whether I can get into America or not. I’d love to come. It would be great. It would be amazing.”

I’m in Toronto, in Canada.
“I can’t get into Canada either. I’ve had a few dates booked in Canada that I’ve had to cancel because they wouldn’t give me a visa, but at some point they will.”

Why, aside from it being the 30th anniversary of the group’s formation, are you going to reunite Culture Club next year?
“Why? Well, why not? It’s such a milestone for us. Who knew that we’d be making a record a year after we started, let alone 30 years? It feels like the right time for me. The anniversary is just an excuse to do something. It just feels right. I’m really excited about the idea and I think there’s a record we never made. There’s one record that we just never made. We did two great albums, ‘Colour By Numbers’ and ‘Kissing to be Clever,’ and then things went a bit weird. But I just feel that there’s a record that we could have done and hopefully will do.”

Have you started writing or recording new Culture Club material yet?
“No. We have the best part of a year, and we’re going to get together in a few months’ time and start the process. We’ve spoken about it and we’ve met up and we’re all quite excited about the idea.”

So all of the original members are getting along fine?
“There wouldn’t be any way that this could happen if there was no harmony. It never would happen. I make it my job to enjoy everything I do now. I didn’t start singing because I wanted to have a miserable life. Anything that’s not enjoyable, I will not do. This will be fun. We will have fun with it and we’re really going to enjoy it. If it isn’t fun, we can always stop.”

So it wasn’t that someone put a big money offer out there for you to do this.
“No one’s offered us a penny. The first thing we’re going to do is write, and then we’re going to play, and then we’ll see what happens. No one’s offered us anything. But if they did, we’d take it. You may help us get an offer. That will come, but it isn’t really the starting point. It can’t be the starting point. We are an entity and there’s something very exciting about that entity, and that’s going to create interest. But for us as individuals, the starting point is, ‘Do we have something to say?’ I want to make a great record. Not a pop record, a great record.”

How do you envision new Culture Club sounding in comparison to the group’s vintage work or your solo work?
“You can’t be what you were and there’s no point in trying. There’s a lot of scope in what we do. We were a soul group with reggae elements, and that stuff is timeless. We’re not going to go and try and make a record with the latest producer. I don’t want it to be some sort of desperate pop tragedy. I want it to be more sophisticated.”

Is Mark Ronson going to produce the album?
“I’d like Mark to write for us. That would be fun. But there are no definite plans. We’re talking to a few people. We’re talking to classic producers like Phil Ramone, but nothing is fixed. I’d love to work with Mark because I think he has a real sense of musical history. As long as we know what we want to achieve between the four of us, we can work with all sorts of people. What I don’t want is to make a record that’s some sort of desperate attempt to be trendy or compete with Britney, because there’s no point. We’re not part of that landscape in any way. Things are really different now, so trying to be part of that doesn’t feel right to me. My instincts are saying no, that’s not where we’re going to go.”

Why haven’t your solo albums been nearly as popular as Culture Club?
“Well maybe not with you. I have a really hardcore audience who loves me. Other than that, who knows why? That’s a silly question, really. How would I know? Like I said before, I haven’t been with a label for 10 years, so I haven’t really worked in an orthodox way and I haven’t really been trying to be in that world. I’ve been doing my own thing and DJing, which really has nothing to do with pop music. But I’ve always worked, so don’t worry about me. I’m in a really good state. Popularity’s overrated. Trust me, I’ve been very popular and very unpopular, so I know both extremes. As I approach 50, success means very different things to me now.”

You turn 50 this year. What do you want people to think of first or remember most about your first 50 years on the planet?
“Oh, god knows. I don’t think you have any control over what people think. I’ve tried to avoid positive criticism and negative criticism because I think it’s kind of irrelevant. If you always get great things said about you — which I never have, although I’ve occasionally had some amazing things said about me, but mostly it’s been quite indifferent — then you develop thick skin. I couldn’t care less about what anyone writes. I try to be myself and speak what I believe is the truth at that time, and I don’t worry too much about what people write because these days it’s endless. This may sound a bit shallow, but I don’t give a f*ck about what people say about me.

“When I do live shows, that’s the future. Everyone’s a critic, everyone’s a f*cking photographer, everyone’s making films. Live is really the only tangible thing we have left. You can film it and all that, but no one else can be you in that situation.

“People don’t really buy records anyway. They just steal them. My new album has been downloaded for months from different websites I’ve been on. Even though it’s so cheap now, people still want to steal it. I think that says a lot about the fact that people don’t really care like they used to about music. Everywhere you turn, there’s music. When I was 16, there was one show a week on Sunday to tell you what the hits were. But now it’s everywhere and people really don’t give a sh*t. If you’re making music and you’re a musician, then you’re passionate about it. But other people aren’t.

“Young people today kind of experience things within their context. They don’t really care about anything from the past necessarily. When I was 16, I was listening to jazz and Bob Dylan and things that weren’t necessarily from my era. People today aren’t particularly interested in things that don’t relate to them. I don’t think that’s true of everyone. Everyone loves The Velvet Underground and everyone buys ‘Ziggy Stardust’ and everyone likes The Sex Pistols to a point, but a lot of young kids now don’t really give a f*ck about anything that isn’t relative to them.”

So do you think that people who didn’t grow up with Culture Club 25 or 30 years ago are going to care?
“I occasionally spot a 16-year-old at a gig, and that’s really quite refreshing because there are lots of old people now. There are some kids who discover you and there are a lot of kids who are into the '80s who weren’t even born then. But your target audience is your generation. I don’t really feel any connection whatsoever to the current pop scene. There are some things that I like and some things that I don’t. But it’s not my world and I don’t work in that world. Occasionally I get dragged into it. Mark Ronson dragged me into it briefly, but I see it as kind of a flirtation and not a permanent thing.”

How long has it been since you’ve been off drugs and alcohol?
“March 2 this year will be three years. March 2 is my anniversary, or my clean birthday.”

Has it changed you?
“Of course, I’m much nicer. You only have to see how people behave when they’re drunk or f*cked up to know what it does to you. Now I’m in a much nicer place and I think I’m a lovely person.”

Did your time in prison change you as well?
“I don’t know if I needed to change, really. I got clean before I went to prison, so that process had already started. I don’t think it changed me.”

Our time is pretty much done, so is there anything we haven’t touched on that you’d like to talk about?
“I think that’s it. I’ve loved DJing in Canada, so let’s hope that the visa problems can be sorted out. It’s been nice talking to you. Take care. Bye-bye.”