07/04/00
Pete Wylie interview

The Mighty Wah! The Scouse Springsteen. The mouth that roared. Half-a-centimetre from death. Pete Wylie's been all these and more in his twenty-year slalom-ride through rock'n'roll. Now he's back with a tremendous album ("Songs Of Strength And Heartbreak") and a Liverpool-lauding single ("Heart As Big As Liverpool")... but only just. Virgin Net met the great man to hear the up-to-date story of the blues. And the reds.

Pete Wylie's back

Exactly how unlucky were you at the beginning of the Nineties?

"Just after me last album, right, I was leaning against a fence and it gave way: I fell twenty feet, broke me back. Broke me chestbone too... I was that close to being crippled, to being killed. When me sternum snapped it missed me heart by half a centimetre. Once that's in your heart, you're dead, mate.

"It does chill me when I stop to think about it. But I was flirting and joking with the nurses in hospital for four days before they told me, "Well, Mr Wylie, we don't think you're going to die now." I went, "Ha ha ha..." They said, "No seriously..." That's a big one for your head to take on.

"When the ambulance and fire engine came to get me, I'd been unconscious, so the fireman had to say: "Sir, can you tell me your name and address?" And I went, "You should know my f****n' name, pal." Obviously there was a degree of shock. I still had that thing of: don't let anyone know you're freaked out, you're vulnerable.

"Now, physically, I'm no miracle, but I'm better than I should've been. As long as I leave that extra sausage in the fridge I won't turn into Pete Loaf."

Pete Wylie's mouth

Are you proud of your legendary lippiness?

"Yeah, but this is something I sit in my salon and I discuss. People interpret behaviour differently in Liverpool to London. I've lived in both and love both. But codes of behaviour that in Liverpool would get you carried on everyone's shoulders and marched through town, will get you totally vilified down south.

"You tell people in Liverpool you're hanging out with famous bands, and they go, 'oh boss, I'd love to meet them'. In London everyone goes, 'oh gawsh, how crass'. Even though half of them wish they were doing it themselves.

"I don't mind being thought of as arrogant, it's the way I talk. I get excited and nervous and I sometimes wear stupid shirts and rings and stuff, but I was like that even before I was in a group. I used to tell meself to walk into a club like Travis Bickle. Sadly it was more like Michael Barrymore, but still..."

You bounced back from the accident to record this stonking album for Sony, but then they dropped you. Happily, Castle are releasing it. But how gutted were you when that pendulum swung against you again? Did you think: this could only happen to me?

"Yeah, I announced that I was leaving the music business so I could spend more time with music... this was before Tony Benn ripped me line off.

"But I've got a collection of theories, and no facts, as to why they pulled the plug on an album that cost loads of money and was picking up great word-of-mouth and has a single that forty thousand people sing along to at Anfield.

"Perhaps I was too rock'n'roll - there was one incident which was tasteless... but funny as f***. You used to get medals for shouting at record companies. Anyway, when I found out, I laughed, cried, got very drunk, went to a lapdancing club, and woke up in the hotel restaurant with me dick in a chocolate cake. Doesn't matter now. The cavalry have arrived. I'll be the Neil Diamond of the new millennium."

Pete Wylie's trousers

Are you as proud of your past as your present?

"There isn't one song I've ever done that I'd diss. I always know why I did what I did at a certain time. I've never faked it, and I've taken stupid risks. I will continue as the king of doing the stupid thing. George Michael does this big thing saying the Wham! records were rubbish, right? Well he should go door-to-door giving everyone their money back then. He should say, 'look, I'm sorry, I've brought you a tenner...'

"Some days I look great, I do, I'm so chuffed with meself. I stand there going... yeah! I went to see Shack in Manchester recently and I was wearing these keks. It was a great night, loads of people going: 'you look great, Wylie.' Then right at the end of the night, I was talking to Mick Head, and this lad comes up and says, where'd you get those keks? I said, me mum bought them for me - as a way of dismissing a conversation about trousers. And he just stood there laughing! At me keks! And I'd felt great all night... the bugger.

"Me moods generally swing... I have this condition, it's a word I added to the album artwork at the last minute... OPTIMISERY. Everything's concurrent. I still have adolescent traumas, but I'm happy. I just like buzzin' with people, motivating meself and others. I'm not confident, but I'm good at displaying the appearance of confidence."

So you haven't turned wary and cautious?

"After the accident, me policy for years now has been: do things. Rather than weigh them up for too long or hesitate. Just do it. For twenty quid, whatever. It's the hand of fate... anything could lead to anything else, could put me name back in people's heads, make the trickle bigger... unless it's really ludicrous, good things will come out of it.

"I wanted an album made by a rock'n'roll powerhouse trio with emotional, thrilling strings all over it - and I made one, and it works. And I've had great moments in me life, that I'll live off forever. And this single will be legendary... it already is.

"And I am proud, and I do get upset, and I am competitive, although these days with meself. And I never lie. I'm Frankie Vaughan directed by David Lynch. I'm good and bad, dark and light, and I'm never sure which bit's in the lead at any time."

by Chris Roberts