BOND OF ‘Parked on the edge of cliff with engine revving...’ BROTHERS ‘On the road, I had an overpowering desire to drive into traffic...’
“I CAME UP with a brilliant idea for dealing with depression,” says Fred Fairbrass. “I took drugs and alcohol, which I’ve got to say, doesn’t work. I gave it a good go, though.”
His brother Richard laughs, knowing Fred is only half-joking. The fact is, the Fairbrass brothers – instantly recognisable with their bald heads and burly gymsculpted bodies as the pop stars Right Said Fred – have both suffered for many years from severe depression.
It’s Mental Health Awareness Week when we meet at a riverside restaurant near their homes in Windsor, and they’re keen to share their experiences.
It may come as a surprise to discover the people behind such upbeat, rib-tickling Number 1 hits as I’m Too Sexy and Deeply Dippy suffer so, but as singer Richard points out: “People are like, ‘How can you be depressed, you’ve got everything?’ But that has nothing to do with it.”
Fred, the guitarist younger brother at 65, was first diagnosed as clinically depressed in the mid-1990s. He now takes a daily dose of escitalopram, a prescription antidepressant also used for anxiety and panic attacks.
As a result, “It’s a little bit better. But the main thing for me is training.when they locked down gyms, I couldn’t believe it.”
Richard, who will be 69 this year but looks at least a decade younger, took Prozac for many years. “The only problem with tablets is they knock the edges off. They used to call me mono man because I had one emotional response to everything.”
As Fred suggests, the lengthy lockdowns of the past two years only made things worse for them. Both contemplated suicide at different points.
Richard says he was driving to Ascot one day when he had an overpowering desire to drive into oncoming traffic.
“I had to pull over to stop myself doing it, to get out the car and walk around. It’s a very common thing, apparently.”
Fred was living in Brighton at the time and found himself parked on the edge of a cliff with his engine revving: “You can’t see a way out for you. You think everyone will be better off without you. My wife phoned and that snapped me out of it.”
He adds: “I’m still depressed, but not suicidal.
It’s a very strange thing. I put myself to bed and I get this huge wave of colour. It’s like a CGI thing. I can physically see it. Sometimes, I hallucinate people standing over me. I’ve woken up screaming in my sleep.”
But if depression is their nemesis, nothing else seems to phase the Right Said Fred duo. Famously fearless when challenging conventions – they are, variously, opposed to lockdowns and masks, vehemently antivax, and both Leave-voting Brexiteers and anti-government – they play no favours.
“Labour Party people can’t even tell you what a woman is,” Richard says dismissively. Keir Starmer is “a joke”, says Fred.
“But I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Boris Johnson.”
“I’d still vote Leave,” jokes
‘I still have depression’
“But Ukraine now has replaced the EU obsession, because everything is pro-ukraine.”
He sneers at the story of U2 stars Bono and The Edge playing a heavily publicised “surprise” set for Ukrainian president Zelensky, in Kyiv.
As for Vladimir Putin, adds Richard: “He takes his shirt off more than most gay blokes I know! There’s definitely something going on there.”
Unsurprisingly, such uncompromising views have attracted a raft of critics. Fred says: “Had lots of hate from the usual suspects, like Piers Morgan.
And Andrew Neil suggested they should be punished for their views.
Fred says: “I tweeted: ‘I beg you, come to my front door and try and punish me’. He blocked me.”
When Piers Morgan took exception to a published photo of Richard attending an antilockdown protest in London, and called them “cretinous numpties”, they accused him of “profiting from other people’s misfortune”. “I went out of curirichard. osity, to see what a demo was like,” Richard explains. “I went on my bike and watched from a distance. But I was photographed, and he just threw his toys out of the pram.”
It’s clear they enjoy the controversy they stir up. But they accept holding unpopular beliefs has come at a cost.
Fred: “We had some writers in LA refusing to work with us because of our politics. ‘You’re anti mask’. Not really. I’m asthmatic.
“One said, ‘You don’t seem to understand. My mom’s ill’. What’s that got to do with anything?”
Richard: “We are an easy target. Either we’re not to be taken seriously or we’re taken too seriously.”
Nevertheless, they were both surprised and bemused when in January this year they won the People’s Choice award for UK’S Most Controversial Band. Fred: “You wouldn’t think just speaking your mind would be controversial.”
“Where are the usual suspects?” asks Richard. “Liam Gallagher’s got an opinion on everything. Lily Allen, Noel Gallagher, Billy Bragg…an opinion on everything. But not now.”
Fred adds: “From the beginning, when Richard came out in 91, we’ve had death threats. We’ve had crushed glass sent in food.
“We were held at gunpoint in Lithuania, beaten up in Russia.”
They laughingly recall the death threats they received in 2015 after it was revealed a phone belonging to Syrian president and mass murderer Bashar al-assad, contained Too Sexy on its most-played list. Richard and Fred performed a special version, replacing the line, “I’m too sexy for my shirt” with: “You’re too awful for this Earth”.
Later, chortles Fred, “there were these Syrian rebels with this huge poster, ‘Thank you, Right Said Fred’.”
Amidst such antics it would be easy to forget Right Said Fred are still one of the most successful British acts in the world.
Taylor Swift took I’m Too Sexy and turned it into 2017 worldwide number one and multi-million-seller Look What You Made Me Do.
“I’ve never once got sick of performing it,” says Fred. “People go absolutely nuts when we play it,” says Richard. “It cheers them up.” The new Right Said Fred single Godsend is less cheery. It’s a sombre yet catchy “warning of where the world is heading”.
And they are publishing their autobiography in August, Too Sexy: Surviving Right Said Fred.
There is also a film later this year “or next”. They are not in it. “It’s just a great story”.
Meanwhile, Richard plans a TV Reality show, Buskers for Britain.
He says: “What concerns us about the cashless society is street performers are going to be killed off. “We want to hear from them. Everyone has a story.”
Right Said Fred never seem to run out of them.
‘We’ve had death threats’
Right Said Fred’s new single Godsend is released on Friday