A New and Better Boy George
HOW IS THE Boy George of today different from the Boy George of 30-plus years ago? “I’m better now,” he declared. That can be taken a number of ways, of course.
There’s the aesthetic “better”at 57, George is a more seasoned and more accomplished singer and stage performer, solo or with his band, Culture Club. However, “better” also applies to George’s life, which during the late 1880s and early 1990s was mired in substance abuse and legal problems, as well as a lack of hits.
The good news is that George has exorcised his demons and moved on to a demonstrably better place. Culture Club was reactivated in 2011 and has been an active concern for the past three years. Life, its first new album since 1999, is due out on October 26.
On the personal side, George’s comfort in his own skin is demonstrated each time he steps onstage these days. “I feel like I’m in more control now,” he acknowledged, speaking by telephone from London. “I’ve definitely gotten more relaxed with my whole relationship with the public and with fame. I’m a lot easier with it, and a lot more approachable, I think.”
Those around him agree. “He’s much more personable now, much more easygoing,” said Culture Club drummer John Moss, George’s former partner. “He doesn’t tell people where to go anymore.”
An incandescent character
Tom Bailey of fellow 1980s hitmakers the Thompson Twins, who is touring with Culture Club this summer, said that the George of today is markedly different from the flamboyant diva he knew when both were at their peaks of popularity.
“George is such an incandescent character,” Bailey said. “He wasn’t always the easiest guy to get on with, because he was very self-assured and flamboyant, explosively personal. There
were times when I had to step back a little bit from George. But now he’s perfectly charming, really together in terms of his own health and welfare, so I was very impressed with him, I must say.”
George’s journey was unlike any other seen before the early 1980s, mostly because the world, and the pop-culture mainstream in particular, had yet to experience an openly gay, androgynously fashioned man with such soulful pipes and such accomplished songwriting chops.
Born George O’dowd, one of six children raised in Kent, England, he was smitten with the New Romantic scene and acts such as David Bowie, Roxy Music and Siouxsie & the Banshees. He squatted in central London for a time, where, while he was still a teen, his style was recognized by music-and-fashion mogul Malcolm Mclaren, who renamed him Lieutenant Lush and installed him as a member of the group Bow Wow Wow.
His tenure there was brief, however, and George left to join with bassist Mikey Craig to form Culture Club, recruiting Moss and guitarist Roy Hay.
The group was a hit out of the box with back-to-back multiplatinum albums in Kissing to
be Clever (1982) and Colour by Numbers (1983), with a string of hits that included Do You Really
Want to Hurt Me (1982), Time (Clock of the Heart) (1982), I’ll Tumble 4 Ya (1982) and Karma Chameleon (1983). Culture Club won a Grammy Award as Best New Artist in 1984. Things rolled ... until they didn’t.
“It was fast,” George said, “and we burned out.”
Downward spiral
The group’s fortunes took a sharp downward turn around 1986. He and Moss broke up, his drug addiction escalated and led to an arrest for possession of heroin, and the group was done by the end of that year.
An attempted reunion in 1989 failed, but the group got it together in 1998 and even released a new album, Don’t Mind If I Do (1999), but broke up shortly after that. It wouldn’t be until 2014, when everyone was “a little older and wiser and not as full of ourselves,” as George put it, that a reunion really stuck.
“We’re four very different guys,” Craig said. “But when we get together and play music, that diversity is a plus, not a minus, as long as we’re smart enough not to get in the way of it.”
“Culture Club has always been very eclectic musically,” George added. “We’ve worn our influences quite proudly, but we’ve never stuck to any particular theme. There’s always been elements of soul, reggae, rock ‘n’ roll. It all goes into the mix, and it comes out and sounds like us.” That’s certainly the case with
Life, the band’s first album this century. It originally was to be called Tribes, and was expected out in 2016 or 2017, but it wasn’t sitting right with the band members, who had previewed new songs such as Different Man, Human Zoo and the Johnny Cash
homage Runaway Train during live shows.
Culture Club ultimately decided to “record everything again,” George said, “just to give the album a kind of continuity, a kind of feel.” It proved to be the right decision. “I just feel that we’ve made an album that we’ve been trying to make maybe since Colour by
Numbers,” George explained. “It’s funny when you say it sounds ‘very Culture Club.’ We do often say that about tracks, but it just feels looser. It’s very catchy. The songs are really strong, really melodic. It just has an ease about it that I really like.”
Most important to him, however, is the ability to tour and play live, which is where he hopes Culture Club can plant a flag that will sustain the band for years to come. “We’ve kind of slowly but patiently been rebuilding our kind of live reputation and working toward making this new record,” the singer said. “Really the best place to showcase music now is live. Radio is not necessarily helpful to a band like Culture Club you get a few plays, but all of it has changed.”
“The one place that hasn’t changed is live,” George said. “If you can put on a good live show, that’s really where the fun is. It’s the only place where you can really be completely authentic. You have to get out there and make it work, and, if you do it right, you can do it forever.” Gary Graff, The
New York Times Syndicate
If you can put on a good live show, that’s really where the fun is. It’s the only place where you can really be completely authentic.”
Boy George