WILL YOUNG
At 23 he found fame after winning Pop Idol. At 40, he’s looking fit and feeling fabulous, he tells DNA.
At 23 he found fame after winning Pop Idol. He has produced almost two decades worth of hit albums, and starred in film, TV and theatre… no wonder Will Young said time out.
But, to his own surprise, he’s back with a formidable new album, Lexicon, a sexy video to boot, books and podcasts!
At 40, he’s looking fit and feeling fabulous, he tells DNA. by Marc Andrews
For almost 20 years, Will Young has been a household name in the UK and well-known to gay audiences around the world. In 2002 his emotive voice, handsome mug and defiant demeanor won him the British Pop Idol reality TV series, the forerunner of today’s X Factor and The Voice.
At the time, the only charting gay artists were Elton John, Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant and Erasure’s Andy Bell. There was also George Michael, forcibly yanked out of the closet by an undercover cop in an Los Angeles toilet in 1998 – so there was a significant amount of public shaming still attached to coming out in the pop world at the time.
Will, who turned 40 in January this year, possess one of the loveliest male voices in the music business, is no wallflower and has never been afraid of being openly gay in the very straight music business. It’s an attitude that has shaped both his career and his life.
Thanks to the TV show and Simon Cowell, Will’s career got off to a blistering start when his debut album From Now On went to #1 in the UK in 2002. The follow-up, 2003’s Friday’s Child also reached #1 with help from the massive success of the single, Leave Right Now.
Yet, even the success of that single was stymied by his record company’s homophobia. At the time, his label fretted that Will sounded “too gay” on the stirring ballad, a song about “losing the highs to spare the lows”. Although Leave Right Now reached #1 in the UK and was a big hit across Europe, his record company didn’t know how to “sell” an openly gay artist in other territories, particularly the US, and Will had no interested in hiding his sexuality to do so.
His success as an album artist has continued
with Will becoming more experimental and heavily involved in the writing of his songs, while also diversifying his career into acting. He made his film debut in 2005’s Mrs Henderson Presents starring Oscar-winner Dame Judi Dench and directed by Stephen Frears, the man behind gay classics My Beautiful Laundrette and Prick Up Your Ears.
Will has also appeared in TV series Skins and Bedlam and TV movie Marple: The Mirror Crack’d From Side To Side. In theatre he received critical acclaim for his roles in Cabaret and the London production of Strictly Ballroom: The Musical (where he honed a nearperfect Australian accent).
Now, after two greatest hits compilations, Will has just released his seventh studio album, Lexicon, a follow-up of sorts to his fifth album, 2011’s Echoes, which swerved into edgy electropop after 2015’s 85% Proof took him into darker and less chart-friendly terrain.
Lexicon is still about his glorious voice and – hurrah! – he’s still explicitly singing from a gay perspective. It also reunites him with the talented writer behind Leave Right Now, Eg White who, in recent years, has written tunes for Sam Smith, Kylie Minogue and Dua Lipa amongst others.
The outstanding lead single, All The Songs evokes Robyn, Jess Glynne and the sadly gone George Michael during his hot-mess era. The video, shot by celeb photographer Rankin, finds Will not only taking on a series of different gay stereotypes but stripping down to reveal he might just have the most pert butt in pop. This is arguably one of the gayest and most proudly liberating music videos a mainstream pop star has ever made.
(Full disclosure: Will lives down the road from me in London. He often pops into the HIV/AIDS charity shop where I volunteer to hand over all manner of treasures for us to sell. I met him prior to his interview for DNA when he was kind enough to donate his beloved guitar to raise money. That’s the kind of great guy he is.)
DNA: How are you Will?
Will: Hi. If I slip into an Australian accent I’m not mocking you… It’s because I did a show for six months in which I had to be Australian. That would be your role in the London stage version of Strictly Ballroom, no less. Show us how good your Australian accent is then. [Getting nasal] Oh right, okay. My name is Will and I’m 40 and I live in Clapham. Oh yeah. I can talk more ocker, like more country, alright mate?!
That’s very good. You put Meryl Streep and Jennifer Saunders to shame!
[Laughs] Oh my God, that’s funny.
Congrats on your new alum, Lexicon, especially considering you said you’d never make another one!
Well… yeah, I know. It’s a bit like an unplanned pregnancy. It was totally not planned! I was doing Strictly Ballroom but I was missing the interaction you get with having a band, the feel of a live gig, which is very fluid and we can talk and have a laugh with the band and the audience. So I did a gig and really enjoyed it, decided to tour the UK in October and wrote All The Songs to promote the tour. I only write with a husband and wife team (from the band Kish Mauve) who are great friends now. The first song I wrote with them was Jealousy [a UK hit in 2011] and I did an album called Echoes with them. We decided to get back together with producer Richard X and do an “Echoes Part II” which is what Lexicon became. That was it. Richard was free, even though he was about to have a baby, and it just kind of happened, which is the best way. It sounds like you enjoyed that it happened so organically?
Yes. It took the pressure off. Writing is quite stressful if I have to write a whole record. This time the pressure was off because I could find all these incredible songs and pick the ones that were right for this record – ones that we all wanted to make. That’s why it was a quicker process than normal and, to be honest, a much more pleasurable one. I hadn’t sung other people’s songs in a long time and had wanted to do that.
There seems to be a lot of heartbreak on Lexicon. Are you trying to tell us something? Well, no. I love doing a mostly upbeat album with sad lyrics. That makes for a more interesting, deeper experience. I think the same about acting. I never want to play a really happy part because it’s rather onedimensional. I want to play parts that are complex, that show a range of emotions and the human condition. Heartbreak brings up a lot of our past stuff and is important to most of us. So, we shouldn’t read too much into songs like Faithless Love and The Way We Were?
No. I was writing songs that weren’t coming from a personal place, which doesn’t mean they don’t have authenticity. We came up with the title of All The Songs (Remind Me Of You), which was a great context for a heartbreak song and started telling a story. I Bet You Called, one of my favourite songs from the album, is also one of the easiest to relate to. Eg White wrote it. He wrote Leave Right Now and I’ve always loved his songs because they are full of pathos. I could sing those songs every day of the week. Is I Bet You Called a nod to addiction and co-dependence?
I could turn that 180-degrees and say, “Well, how interesting that you feel that way about it!”
The Germans said I sounded too gay on Leave Right Now. I could sue them for that now! I could sue radio stations and their openly homophobic DJs!
Once the songs are out there, they’re out of my hands. It’s for the audience to interpret; they’re a conduit for their emotional state and how they relate to a song.
The video for All The Songs is rather racy. Is this you not hiding anything anymore? Videos should be a black forest gateau and have lots of layers to them. If you can explain a video in one sentence then it’s great. There were different characters that I played and I really enjoyed taking my clothes off. I did it in Cabaret the musical and in Mrs Henderson Presents. The video was about being comfortable in my skin and showing I’m 40 and I love it. I feel very comfortable in my body and wanted to see what the reaction was to a man doing that. This might not have been the kind of video you’d have made when you were 20, we’re guessing?
No, I don’t think I would have been brave enough or creative enough. I was studying women’s studies, so I could have done it then as a kind of dissertation! [Laughs]
You might also have ended up on RuPaul’s Drag Race!
Exactly. It’s nice, as an artist, to do things that have been in my consciousness for a long time. The next one I’m doing is a Northern Soul video and I’ve wanted to do that for five years. It’s finding the right time and music to do it. I have a whole scrapbook in my head. That’s the amazing thing about being a pop star – there’s so many different times I can choose different projects.
Such as?
The Lexicon album cover shoot was done on the Calais ferry [between France from the UK]. I’d always wanted to do something on a ferry because they haven’t really changed in modern times. It felt like the right time because of Brexit and what that stretch of water and Calais represents. It was also a personal thing because my dad would get the ferry over to France twice a week. It’s nice to speak to you because I also have such ties with Australia.
You made one of your very first videos, Your Game in Australia, didn’t you?
I did and I became great friends with Michael Gracey who directed The Greatest Showman. He became my core creative. We created two tours together and TV specials.
You’ve had a small but dedicated fanbase in Australia for many years.
That’s really nice to know, but unknown to me. For self-preservation, I didn’t do international and didn’t want to be travelling the whole time. I wanted to be around things that would ground me. I would love to go out there and do Mardi Gras. I think it would be a laugh.
You really were a trailblazer – an openly gay man singing beautiful pop songs – long before Sam Smith or Troye Sivan.
That’s really nice to hear. It was never intentional. Looking back, I had to put up with outrageous, hideous and archaic attitudes. I’m proud I was strong enough and proud enough of my sexuality to not bend to the pressure, which was coming from all directions.
Is it true you were you told to re-record Leave Right Now because one of your record company executives thought you sounded “too gay”?
Oh, yes, the Germans said that I sounded too gay on it. I could sue them for that now! I could sue radio stations for allowing their DJs to be so openly homophobic – it was endless.
The times have changed, haven’t they?
It’s wonderful. I wouldn’t say things have changed quickly, though. People have been educated. And now you see it with transgender people. They’ve had an awful time. I wasn’t educated about transgender people until
three years ago when I did a video about a transgender girl. When LGBTIQ issues are on the agenda people become more educated. You’ve had to contend with this your whole career. Weren’t you outed during your time on Pop Idol?
I came out just after Pop Idol, deliberately. I didn’t mind that. I knew I would have to do that because I always wanted to be a pop star and that [coming out] would go hand in hand.
That must be your politics and feminist degree coming in handy there!
[Laughs] Yes, totally. I’m really stubborn and quite contrarian in some ways. I was terribly insecure but going to university helped.
Plus, you also have a musical drama in the works, is that correct?
Yes, I’m doing that with Michael Gracey. We’ve been working on that for four years now. I’m starting to do the music and then we will do a pilot. That takes time but it’s really exciting.
Is there more?
There’s always more! I’m doing talks on mental health and wellbeing for companies.
Are you happy with your life as a 40 year old? Yes, love it.
Are you seeing anyone?
No, not at the moment.
Would you like to?
Yes, but I have a very laissez-faire approach to it. There’s something great about being 40 and not having expectations. People can get sad when they think that at this stage of life but I wanted to be here. There’s something about just being fluid. I don’t have any disappointments. I feel very fortunate, and have done a lot of work on myself. I feel great as a 40-year-old. It’s fucking brilliant.
Aren’t you a twin as well?
I’m a twin, yeah. We’re very close. He’s the funniest person I know. He probably says that I’m bossy.
Are you?
Oh, yes. I’m ten minutes older, which counts for a lot as a twin! [Laughs] It’s very special being a twin. It’s like belonging to a secret club. What’s your message to the readers of DNA? Never eat yellow snow. They’re the words of wisdom my father passed on to me.
It doesn’t snow very often in Australia. That’s true. Perhaps in the Blue Mountains? Not much.
Well, the only other thing I’d say is that I’ve learned to share and connect with people in the gay community. We can all connect with each other in ways other than just getting drunk in clubs and the more that happens the more strength and solidarity we’ll find. That is what I’m looking to do more of, personally.
Do you think that’s about us, the LGBTIQ community, learning to love ourselves and each other more?
It’s so important, because of the shame that’s put on to us; it splits us and creates divides. It doesn’t need to be like that. The more we love ourselves the more we want to connect. I’m amazed that, at age 40, I’m finding a whole new way of connecting to my gay brothers and sisters. I do genuinely see it like that. That feeling of solidarity is really powerful, really nurturing and really strong.
We also love the fact you have a big drag bag to dip into!
Wait for the next video! It’s going to be fun.
I really enjoyed taking my clothes off in the video. It’s about being comfortable in my skin and showing I’m 40 and I love it!
MORE: Lexicon is released through Cooking Vinyl. For more go to willyoung.co.uk or find him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram