“Yeah, I’m over a lot because my mum’s family are from places like Finglas,” the 52-year-old reveals. “I’ve two aunts living there who I’ll hopefully get to see when I’m back doing a gig in December. It’s a DJ set by the way – other people’s stuff, no singing! I’ve had people tweeting me going, ‘The least you could have done is stuck ‘Karma Chameleon’ on.’ Er, no, that would be like masturbating in public!'”
In a wide-ranging interview, George, who’s back in musical action with the wonderful This Is What I Do, has lots to say about the 2015 Irish Gay Marriage Referendum.
“It’s a funny one because for me, gay marriage is quite a conservative idea. It’s kind of gay people buckling down, doing the right thing, which you’d think these right-wing types would embrace.”
He also discusses his clashes with the tabloids (“You know that saying, ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity?’ Bollocks!”); bunking off school to see Lou Reed (“He had the bleached hair and the guyliner on. I wanted him to be this exotic alien creature and he didn’t let me down!"); New Romantic (“It was actually a very, very small scene with lots of hairspray and even more ego” and Culture Club’s not always glamorous heyday (“It used to be a huge bugbear that while we were parked up in some motorway service station Duran Duran and their leggy model girlfriends were off in the Seychelles making videos on the back of a yacht.”)
Read the whole interview in the new Hot Press, out now!