Forget what you think you know about Right Said Fred, they are not just shirt stripping, bulging muscle exposing, pop tune touting brothers. Bursting onto the music scene in 1991 with the legendary ‘I’m Too Sexy’ which reached number 1 in 32 countries, earned them the first of 2 Ivor Novello awards and made them the first UK artist since the Beatles to reach number 1 in the US with a debut single. They have gone on to sell 4 million records, played
all over the world and have just released their 8th studio album. Ahead of their UK tour we talk to the Lead singer Richard Fairbrass to find out about the person behind the public persona.
What should people expect from the latest album ‘Stop the World’?
I think it’s more in keeping with the very first album it’s got more of an English sound to it than some of the stuff we have done previously.
What’s the tour like?
For the tour we are doing an acoustic show but we didn’t just want to do a plug in and play sort of thing. In the last couple of years we have got a new manger and we have been telling him stories. One evening he said why not do an acoustic show but tell some of the stories that are funny. It’s more like an audience with, but on the road. It’s very different to what we have done before.
Is there as much taking your shirts off?
No we did a lot of that in Europe between 2001 to 2008, but the image of the band was very party driven, very glossy and body driven. We were doing some really big festivals and that was part of what we were doing. I think we were beginning to get tired of the same routine and wanted to try something different. This show that we are currently doing wouldn’t work abroad, it’s very language driven so it has to be in a language that’s understood or we would have to learn all these different languages, by the time I had learnt all these languages I would be dead. Plus in an acoustic show it’s just not fitting to ponce about in a skin tight t-shirt, we have dressed it down, it’s classical us.
Why did you give away your Ivor Novello awards?
I gave them both away to the local cancer unit almost the day after I got them. Not just my Ivor’s, all my disks, everything. When my mum heard the story she insisted that I retrieve one of them as she thought it was bloody ridiculous. When you see famous people’s houses and they have all these disks on the wall and all that stuff, I didn’t feel comfortable with it all. I remember walking through the hospital with this barrow with all these disks and awards piled high and people thinking who is this funny bloke with all this stuff and what is he doing here, I felt really self conscious but in the end they took it all and auctioned it off and made some money, better that than hanging in my flat.
Do you have any stand out moments?
When we went back to Germany in 2001 and we had a top 5 album and top 2 single. By that point as far as the UK was concerned we were finished, we couldn’t get an appointment with a UK record label. Also when we did a warm up gig for this tour there was a punk guy and he asked for a hug so I gave him a hug and by the time we had finished we had hugged almost everyone in the audience. It’s something I will always remember as it transcended the music, I can’t really explain it. There was something going on beyond what we were doing on stage. When you do charity work, when you meet kids, I met one kid the other day who was 7 and he had leukaemia since he was 3, its moments like that you will always remember.
What happened when you went to Moscow?
We didn’t know that it was an anti gay demonstration; we were told it was a pro democracy march. We also weren’t told that the mayor hadn’t granted it a license so the march itself was illegal. We went up there expecting it to be a very funny pro democracy march just walking through the town. We got dropped off by the car, which then speed away because the police wouldn’t allow it to stay. Fred and I suddenly found ourselves surrounded by cameras asking us why we were there. The cameras had turned their attention away from two guys who were there as part of the anti gay demonstration and the cameras were pointing at me and Fred which really irritated them. We were talking to the cameras and within two minutes the crowd just started to tighten up and Fred was saying it didn’t feel right.
Then suddenly out of nowhere these fists started flying and they knocked seven bells out of us. We tried to get through the police line to try and get out and the police were actually forming a barrier so that we could remain caught and the attack could continue. The police were completely on the side of the guys who were knocking us about. The only way we got out was by falling to the floor through peoples legs, then we ran for about 20 minutes up one of these main streets being chased by a couple of thugs. Eventually we shook them off and then hid in a friend’s restaurant for 4 hours until our flight. I have never understood how people get so exercised about what goes on in other peoples bedrooms, it doesn’t interest me at all, and it never has, provided they don’t frighten the horses I don’t care. If its different from what you are no matter what it is, it is much easier to attack it. It was pretty scary I have to say.
Do you think people in the UK have an image of you that isn’t representative of who you are?
Completely, that’s exactly what it is. It’s partly that when you first start out you have no idea that what you are doing is going to stick with you. You have no clue that the first images you make will stick so firmly in people’s imaginations. The only reason we took our clothes off in I’m too sexy was because the director asked us if we had anything else to wear and we said no, he suggested we took our shirts off and that was it. Of course from that moment on it became synonymous with the song but also synonymous with us as a couple of fairly mindless gym queens that when in doubt take their shirts off. I am much more relaxed on stage if I don’t have to pretend to be a sex symbol, which I was never very happy doing to be honest. I found that whole sexual thing difficult to maintain. We are just trying to show people a different side to the band, it’s not all taking your clothes off and doing some kind of funny sexy dance or whatever you want to call it.
How did you come to be confident about your sexuality?
I think what made it easier for me was my boyfriend at the time, Stuart who died of cancer in September last year; we were together for 28 years. What gave me the strength to be confident about myself and confident about how I felt for him, was him. If I was going to start apologising for who I was or excusing it in some way it was inevitably going to devalue how I felt about him and the love I had for him. You can’t love someone and say you are ashamed of it at the same time, it’s not consistent.
There were one or two people I had in my life that I knew I could tell. I could tell my brother because I knew he would be cool, then gradually you test the water depending on your experiences, you broaden the people you share your information with. I don’t believe in shouting from the roof tops without thinking, I think you have got to give it serious thought. Whether is gay, it’s a religious thing, whether it’s a disability, it could be anything at all, once it’s out there and people know about it, it changes your life. So you have to be prepared for that, some people will step up to the plate and be fantastic and there will be some disappointments along the way, you just have to accept that that’s the case.
Are you still too sexy for your shirt?
No, I never was. When I see truly sexy people I realise how ironic the song originally was. The idea of me saying it was always ironic. There are shirts I have but I don’t think I am too sexy for any of them now. I was really insecure back then; I didn’t feel confident at all about anything. I look back now and think I wasn’t that bad looking really, I don’t know where all this insecurity came from but it’s better to learn it now than never.
Published in Yorkshire Evening Post & Metro
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