Kimberley: A lot of our audience, they would love to emulate a career like what you guys have had in the music industry. What advice would you give to them if they were trying to start out? What would you say to do while they’re at school?
Neil Tennant: You have to learn about it and follow your instincts and practice. From an early age, I wrote songs. I just made it up in my head, and I grew up in the time of the Beatles and David Bowie. Ever since grammar school, I used to tell people I was going to be a pop star, and even I thought it was a ridiculous thing to say because it seemed an impossible thing to achieve. But I always carried on writing songs. When I came to London to go to North London Polytechnic, I made demos for music publishers.
Chris Lowe: I was always doing music. We had a school orchestra, then a school dance band, and we formed a little group out of that. We used to play all the working men’s clubs and earn money, and that was great. We also played the school dances.
Kimberley: You’re not in one box or another. Our audience might be surprised to find that you bring a lot of technology into your music. Sometimes people at school think, “If I’m into tech, I can’t have a career in music,” but you prove that’s not the case. You’re multidimensional as the Pet Shop Boys.
Neil Tennant: We used to just have harpsichords, then someone invented the grand piano. Then someone invented the saxophone and that created jazz. Then someone invented the electric guitar, and that created rock and roll. Technology is really at the heart of all types of music.
Kimberley: You’ve got a new piece of work out. You’ve worked with Alan Turing’s biographer on it. Talk to me about what we can expect from that.
Neil Tennant: Alan Turing became famous recently for being a codebreaker, for leading the team that broke the Enigma code during the Second World War. Really, he’s also the person who first thought of the computer. We became fascinated by the story because it has a tragedy. He was gay, and it was illegal to be gay in those days. He was prosecuted for being gay. So we followed his story on both a personal level and a scientific and codebreaking level.
Kimberley: Incredible. Andrew, you’re obviously Alan’s biographer. What was it like when you got the call to say the Pet Shop Boys wanted to work with you?
Andrew Hodges: That was very exciting because I’ve always been a fan of the Pet Shop Boys, and I couldn’t believe it. We got together pretty quickly after that, and they’d already scoped out a lot of what they wanted to do. The piece opens in 1926, exactly 100 years ago, with a book called Natural Wonders Every Child Should Know. In Alan Turing’s words, it opened his eyes to science because it gave the idea that there was an explanation for everything. It wasn’t just looking at things, collecting them, and putting them into boxes. It was finding an understanding of what lay underneath. So that’s how the piece begins, and I think the music reflects that. There’s a children’s choir.
Neil Tennant: There is. The Manchester Grammar Choir.
Andrew Hodges: It conveys that basic sense of wondering how on Earth the world works. It’s absolutely baffling when you look at it.
Kimberley: It’s such an incredible way to do it, through music and narration. We always end our interviews with the same question. If you could go back in time and speak to your younger selves, what advice would you give? Chris, I’ll come to you first.
Chris Lowe: It’ll probably be better than you think it’s going to be.
Kimberley: That’s really lovely advice. Neil?
Neil Tennant: My advice would be: stick with it, because it’s going to be amazing.
Kimberley: And finally, Andrew.
Andrew Hodges: You have to be yourself. That’s all. I mean, it’s obvious really. Everyone knows that. But it’s not so easy to do at the time.
