I’m still Wilde about touring

80s legend turned landscape gardener Kim has hung up her hoe and is hitting the road again

KIM Wilde is going back on tour and reckons her fans are relieved she hasn’t “popped my clogs”.

Britain’s answer to Debbie Harry will be 60 in November and a couple of months before will begin a greatest hits tour, starting in Glasgow.

Fans will enjoy a back catalogue of songs such as Kids in America, Chequered Love, View from a Bridge, You Keep Me Hangin’ On and You Came.

While the 80s were her heyday, two years ago Kim’s 14th album Here Come the Aliens reached No21 in the charts. It prompted a second wind for the music career she had put on ice to pursue landscape gardening and presenting slots on the BBC, Channel 4 and Magic Radio.

Here Kim tells us about the view from her bridge. Why a greatest hits tour? The greatest hits is taking me, personally, on a journey that I haven’t gone down for a while.

I very rarely sit around and examine my legacy and my past, or listen to my old songs.

And that has been a really emotional journey, going back and knowing how my life panned out, side by side with those songs. It brings back lots of memories for me.

I am proud that somehow I have survived with my sense of humour intact. I have never taken myself too seriously as a performer. I take what I do very seriously, but I don’t take myself too seriously at all – or anybody else for that matter. Do you still like to tour? There is this irresistible lure to get out there and do what we do with our band and play our songs.

It’s really exciting to play because the audience make it that way. They enjoy it more and more each year. I think they are probably relieved I haven’t popped my clogs. How is your dad, 50s rocker Marty Wilde, doing at the age of 80? I was smoking when my career first began. Dad stopped that and neither of us drink now. That’s quite an interesting thing to talk about, alcohol, but we won’t go there now. That is an incredible thing. The way that alcohol is so accepted in the profession. It doesn’t have to be that way. You toured with Alice Cooper in 2014 who is very different on stage than he is off and at 71 has boundless energy. Did you get any tips? He looked great. He had a huge amount of energy. He and his wife were touring constantly around the world.

Some of the coolest rock stars I have been working with or observing in recent years, all of them have come to the same conclusion – that alcohol is no friend to a performer, or anyone, in fact. You’ve had chart highs and supported David Bowie and Michael Jackson but also had music industry lows when you parted ways from your record label after third album Catch as Catch Can sold poorly. How did you keep going to have this 40-year career? It doesn’t matter whether you had a hit record or not, music is a career that can sustain you throughout life. Maybe not financially, but it will always feed your soul. If you love music, it will never let you down.

That’s how I loved music when I started. I have been fortunate and it has been very good to me. But I think for a lot of people who are drawn to fame for other reasons, then they can quickly disappear down a rabbit hole. We have seen that happen in the press many times, with people lured by bright lights and the promise of fame and fortune. It can all end in tears. You had a second career as a gardener in the late 90s and noughties, presenting gardening shows on BBC and Channel 4 and winning a