style                  clubs                   divas                 bands                  boy                  taboo                  more                   index
						NME - 1982
		Last year Pete Bruns said he wanted to kill Ia McCulloch.  People were more concerned with this and with his peculiar appearance than with his group´s music. The group Dead Or Alive,  were floundering with a floppy sloppy over-intense style and internall disagreements.  It seemed as if they would never break out of the sheltered world of cultism as numerous young Liverpool upstarts skipped past them on the way to fame and fortune. Fortunately the next single ´Number Eleven´ was Dead Or Alive best yet,  and althought not as good as they were capableof,  for a while it looked like a chart smasheroo.  Inevitable the record company,  thought similarly and put everything behind it. Then a couple of months ago,  after a silence and a period of reassesment, a new 12´´ - It´ Been Hours Now´´ crept into the record shops on the smartly titled Black Eyes label.  Its four songs are much more how Dead Or Alive  should be,  more relaxed,  more confident.  Speaking to Pete Burns,  i find him confident and happy - ´The music didnt´t really fit in with the lyrics, so I was really embarrassed about doing something like putting lyrics on the sleeves,´´ Burns admiits, ´´For me the singing used to be like throwing a tantrum in an empty room; now th music is much more in line with the vocals.  The total effect is much more impressive than it used to be.  What I really always wanted to do lyrically was to come across as a blank. You know if you listen to disco records,  they´re not really about anything but you can still relate to them.  Theyre like a blank screen that you can ´project what you wanto onto. People think that because of my appearance getting up on stage is good enough for m.  They think that if I stood up on this table now I´d be the happiest person in the world because everyone´s eyes could be on me.   Promoters think,  Oh God,  he looks a bit of an odd bod, stickhim up in front of fifty people he´ll be as happy as Larry and give him 10 pounds at the end of it.  That´s not something I´mprepared to do. I hate the ideas of shows,  it reminds me of people like Darts.  You know,  all the superficiality and tack.  They´re also reminiscent of the Ziggy Stardust idea of performances,  you know,  living one image then dragging another one.out for the stage perfornances.  That´s outdated and irrelevant now.  I´m not just an image for the stage - this is me,  I live like this. That´s the way I feel at the moment.  Who knows, in two years time I might be being dragged on in a ten-foot galleon, but not just yet.´´                                                                                           NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS - 29 Th may 1982
			back to DEAD OR ALIVE   menu click to enlarge