Limahl on P3 Broadcast 19th July 2000

Transcript of a telephone interview broadcast on National Swedish Radio station P3. Recorded 13th July. Program was hosted by Pelle Gustafsson.

(Beginning of interview missing)

Limahl: ...it went top-five in the charts. And then shortly afterwards the second record company released another 80s compilation and there was a third and a fourth and now there are hundreds. This was followed by radio stations who started to have 80s nights and then it transferred to night clubs and about 6 months after this my phone started to ring - a lot....

Pelle: Which means that you are quite a busy man right now

Limahl: I am very busy now. I mean, this year for example I played gigs in Venice, Copenhagen, Belgium, in Spain and obviously in the UK.

Pelle: How many gigs do you have on an ordinary month? Could you estimate?

Limahl: Oh, it can really vary, I mean, one month I could have 20 and another month I might have 7, you know, it really varies. I'm actually going back into a musical in theatre. I haven't signed the contract yet...

Pelle: Oh, what do you mean, what kind of musical theatre?

Limahl: It's a musical - I can't really give too much away because I haven't signed the contract yet and I don't want to have - in English we say: "An egg on my chin" which means, you know, I don't want to tempt fate and tell you it's happening and then it doesn't. Everything is basically agreed and I've met with the director and producers. It's a musical that celebrates songs from movies and musicals, so if that happens that starts in October and I'll be performing 8 shows a week! So then I'll be even busier!

Pelle: All Right. When you perform live right now as you do - I saw that you sometimes wear a Limahl wig on stage, why is that?

Limahl: I stopped wearing the wig actually.

Pelle: You did?

Limahl: Yeah, well in the beginning I thought, you know, I'm 41 years old now, I'm not bleaching my hair for a few gigs. It's not graceful and then I got so busy and I just thought: Well, I'll go to the hairdresser's and if I don't like it I'll change it. And I looked in the mirror when it was finished and I loved it immediately. I feel like a teenager again.

Pelle: So you're blonde?

Limahl: I'm blonde again.

Pelle: All right.

Limahl: Indeed

Pelle: Is it as long as it was in the '80s ?

Limahl (laughing): No, of course not. Now that would be tragic. No, I've got like a 90's version of my old style...

Pelle: All right

Limahl: ... so I'm very much a boy of the millennium, really

(Fades into 'NeverEnding Story')

Pelle: But if we go back a while - I'm thinking about what happened after the huge success that you had in the '80s with Kajagoogoo and as a solo artist also, with NeverEnding Story - when this wind had blown over, what did you do then, just after?

Limahl: Well, obviously I had that huge hit with the NeverEnding Story from the film and then I made an album with Giorgio Moroder, the producer, which didn't really become that successful, for various reasons, I think one of the big problems was we waited too long, it was like a two year gap, and then I spent one year with legal battles with my record company and management, and then I spent another year putting some new things together and I went to America and I got a record deal with Arista Records and I was signed by a very important man called Clive Davies who signed Whitney Houston, and they spent a quarter of a million dollars recording six songs for me and then they decided they didn't like them and they dropped me. So it was really a nightmare, it was a bit of a nightmare. And then I was so fed up.. do you understand fed up?

Pelle: Yeah.

Limahl: I was really pissed off...(laughing)

Pelle: I can understand that..

Limahl: I just didn't do anything for about three years and I'd made a lot of money so I was just living off my royalties.

Pelle: You come from Wigan which is a place up north in England and I know that you actually sang in the local record store, was that true, or..?

Limahl: Well I used to sing in the shops and recently, bizarrely, I read an interview with Tom Jones and he did exactly the same! He used to sing at every opportunity when he was growing up and this is what I did from like 6-7-8 years old. I would sing, I would stand on a stool, on a chair, you know, if my mother had friends round...

Pelle: Are you still like that you burst into singing, at occasions?

Limahl: You want me to sing now, don't you?

Pelle: If you want to...

Limahl (laughing): Oh, you're not gonna ask me?

Pelle: Okay, can you sing, you know, "Too Shy"?

Limahl (singing): Tongue tied or short of breath don't even try, try a little harder, cos you're too shy shy, hush hush eye to eye... that's it

Pelle: Oh thanks a lot Limahl. Take care

Limahl: Okay

Pelle: Good luck on the tour and everything

Limahl: Thanks very much, bye-bye

Pelle: Bye-bye

(Fading into "Too Shy")