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Pop rebel Pete Burns is storming Britain with a profile rivalling his ?80s heyday. But it?s a bumpy ride, reports Peter Hackney.
In 1984, I was a nine-year-old living in the outback Queensland mining town of Mount Isa. It?s a rugged place where the men are men, and the women are too. So it was something of a revelation when I saw Pete Burns, lead singer of Dead or Alive, cavorting on TV in the clip for their debut single, ?That?s The Way (I Like It)?. Here was someone who looked nothing like any man I?d ever seen, but certainly wasn?t a woman either, if the big bulge in his leotards was anything to go by.
Childhood impressions can leave a powerful mark, and over the years I?ve watched keenly as Pete Burns and DOA went on to storm the world with their trademark tune ?You Spin Me ?Round (Like A Record)?; regrouped as a ?90s dance band with tracks like ?Sex Drive?; and as Pete morphed over the years into an increasingly extreme-looking creature, transformed by the surgeon?s knife, the tattooist?s needle and various accoutrements.