It’s been a great year for the Pet Shop Boys! They released ‘Yes,’ their tenth studio album which went to number 32 on the Billboard 200, making it the highest charting record since since 1993′s ‘Very.” They also secured a number one spot on the Billboard Dance Chart with Love. Etc (represented by our PRO MOTION firm) and their follow up single ‘Did You See Me Coming?’ was just released to club culture.
Following a European run of the ‘Pandemonium Tour,’ the second leg is taking them to North and South America, hitting NYC tomorrow for their first U.S. date!
We had the honor of speaking with Chris Lowe about how it feels to be top of the charts in the U.S. once again, what the experience of working with Xenomania on ‘Yes’ was like, and what we can expect to see from them once the tour is finished. Listen to the interview below!
INTERVIEW
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DID YOU SEE ME COMING? (PSB POSSIBLY MORE MIX)
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LOVE ETC. (GUI BORATTO REMIX)
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First of all, congratulations on the success of “Love, etc.” in the U.S. How does it feel to be on the top of the dance charts over here again?
It’s great! I mean, we’ve had really quite the success. It’s great, really. Now if we could top the pop charts. But any chart will do.
You’re about to start a North American tour and you have a lot of loyal fans over here but you’ve historically had quite a hard time with America, with the regular charts, even though you’ve been very successful in the dance charts. Why do you think that is? Is it something to do with the radio not playing you that much?
You can’t really have any success without radio play in America. The DJ at KROQ told us that one day the owner of KROQ came in and threw down “Blue Monday” and said “We’re never playing this again.” So that was kind of officially the end of electronic music on American radio because grunge had just come along and that was sort of the death of electronic music. Electronic music is quite influential, really, at the moment in, I think, hip hop and also in dance, so it’s making a bit of a comeback. Although it went underground and it sort of disappeared from the dance charts, it never really went away and we never stopped doing what we do- we never stopped writing songs, making records, touring. And we have got a very strong fan base and also with the internet now, radio is less important than it was and you’ve got Spotify and Twitter and all the rest of it and so people can discover us without having to come across us via the radio. As you say, we do have a very strong following in America and we can always tour. Also, when you do come across us, it’s great because there’s so much of us. It’s like when I came across David Bowie and I just discovered all these great albums I’d never heard. It’s great when you find an artist that you like.
I wanted to ask you about the new album “Yes”. I know you worked with Xenomania who is very big, especially in the UK. What was your experience working with them like? I noticed that the album now has a more poppy feel to some of the recent predecessors, was that their influence?
Well, actually, we went into our studios to start writing songs and we realized we writing a lot of upbeat, uplifting, euphoric pop songs. So, we thought we should work with the best pop producers in Britain at the time, which is Xenomania. So we approached them and they agreed to work with us and we work very well with them because it’s a team of people and they’re really into pop. They come from all different nationalities, they’re people of all ages- one of the blokes was in the KLS, one of the blokes in Daft Punk, I think he plays occasionally with them, so there’s a large variety of people working there but they have a huge enthusiasm for writing songs and for creating great pop music. The combination of us with them worked really well. But also I think we hit the zeitgeist really because there’s been a resurgence in Britain of electronic pop music. But also you hear the influence of electronics in all of hip hop these days, with The Black Eyed Peas and what they’re doing, and also Lady GaGa and even The Killers’ song “Human” is kind of electronic pop really, produced by Stuart Price, and Madonna’s “Confessions on a Dance Floor”. It seems like there’s been a return of great pop music to the charts and hopefully we’re a part of that.
I wanted to comment on the fact that a lot of your songs have a lot of social commentary, like “Love, etc.” Do you sometimes feel that side of your work is overlooked?
Yeah, I think we have got lumbered with the tag of being ironic 80′s cold electronica which is something I don’t think we’ve ever been. There’s always been a lot of social commentary but we don’t hit people over the head with it. “Love, etc.”, I think, is really good for the current times because it’s anti-consumerist, it’s a song about love. But there is a funny little payoff line “ Don’t have to be beautiful, but it helps”, so there’s a little bit of humor there. And not many people do wit in their songs, a lot of people are very earnest, but we’re not afraid to have humor in our songs. There is some irony to what we do, I don’t think there’s any irony on this record, but I think one of the things people do underestimate about Pet Shop Boys is the emotional content of the songs and there’s quite a lot of sadness as well, which often gets overlooked, I think.
You’ve just received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Brits. What was that experience like?
Oh, it’s fantastic! Brandon Flowers from The Killers presented us with the award and he made the most gorgeous speech. It was very flattering to see that he did that. It almost brought tears to the eyes, really, it was just so heartfelt. And then we did a medley of our songs, which was about 16 minutes or so and he came on performed “It’s A Sin” with us, along with Lady GaGa, so it was a really fantastic moment. We’re not really that concerned about awards, but this was quite nice because it was the music industry that was honoring us for all the work we’ve done over the years and everything and it was quite a special occasion and we put a lot of work into the performance. It was great and hopefully we’ll get another one in another 20-odd years! Still haven’t got a Grammy!
Add one of those to add to the collection, I know you’ve got plenty of awards. Maybe as the tides are turning, you might get one soon! We’ll hope so.
You’ve worked with everyone from Dusty Springfield to Robbie Williams to Madonna. Is there anyone in the business that you’d still like to work with?
Well, we’ve just written a song for Shirley Bassey, which is on her next album, which is being produced by David Arnold. Oh, can you believe it’s just started to rain here. The person that we say that we’d really like to work with, I don’t know if it’ll ever happen, is Stevie Nicks. I think we tend to like working with female vocals, but we have done remixes for David Bowie and Blur and The Killers, but to write a new song…actually one of the people I would really have loved to have worked with would be Nina Simone, but sadly, she isn’t here anymore. One of the most memorable concerts I ever went to was Nina Simone. It ended with her slamming the piano lid down and everyone was slow hand clapping and slowly walking out of the room. It was really fantastic, inspirational. I don’t know how difficult that would have been in the studio to deal with. Quite often these things come because people approach us and you never know who’s going to phone up and ask you if you’d like to work with them. We’ll consider everything.
Would you ever consider producing a full album for somebody?
Well, we did Dusty a whole album…no, no we did half an album for Dusty, a full album for Liza. We’re quite busy at the moment with this tour and we’re also writing music for a ballet which is going to be performed at Saddlers Wells, so we’re doing that. We never stop, really, and then we probably have to do our own album, but, anyway, if something interesting came along, we’d definitely consider doing a whole album for somebody.
I read that you originally wrote “Heart” for Madonna, but you didn’t want to take the risk of (the disappointment of her turning it down)
Well Neil said that so it must be true, I don’t remember that!
Are there any other songs you wrote with other people in mind but decided to do yourself?
I can’t think of anything. There may well be, but I can’t recall.
You just said you were going to be working on a ballet when the tour finishes. Is there anything else lined up after that?
Steven Daldry who directed “An Inspector Calls” and also directed “Billy Elliott”, he’s interested in doing a musical with us, but that’s quite a long way in the future, but we’d still like to write another musical.
After 25 years in the business, what keeps it exciting for you?
We like so many aspects of what we do. We love writing the songs and what’s really amazed us is that we’ve become a touring act- we never really thought that we would do that. We just thought we were meant to write songs in the studio, put records out, make videos and touring is the aspect of what we do that’s surprised me the most, how enjoyable it is and not only that but in Europe and Japan, where it’s for the festival headline act, which has come as a bit of a surprise to us, really. But what I think we particularly like about touring is the reaction of the audience and the warmth and love that you feel from the crowd, you can really feel it on the stage and I don’t know if that’s because we’ve been around so long and we mean so much to people in the audience but you can really feel this outpouring of love and it’s a really nice feeling.
Well, that’s all I wanted to ask, but it was a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for doing this.
Great! And what are you doing there (In the U.S.)?
I am working with PRO MOTION, you know, the company that did “Love, etc”, the promotion for that. Been here for a while…enjoying it, New York’s not bad.
Oh, I love New York. Never lived there long enough, though. I’ve been there for, like, weeks. I always thought I’d end up there. No, never happened.
One day, maybe!
Thanks Chris!
Did You See Me Coming? (Pandemonium Tour Live in Russia)
