Kagagoogoo was a UK band in the early 1980’s with the best known hit being ‘Too Shy’ which reached No 1 all around the world. The lead Vocalist Limahl eventually left for a solo career where he released the song ‘Never Ending Story’ to the film of the same name. I met up with him to talk Music, Ghosts, Politics and more.
What would you most like to be remembered for?
The Choice is really out of my hands, most people would remember me for the hair and that song, or those two songs.
We know most politicians were born in the fiery pit of hell as a spawn of Satan, What are your opinions of the politics of the world today?
If I’m brutally honest I think they get a bad rap, I think it’s too easy to knock politicians and think it’s a thankless task and I think there are some genially hard working politicians. You get the odd prat but if you look at the politics around the world, ours ain’t that bad, it’s not perfect but it’s a lot better than Afghanistan or some dreadful parts of Africa.
What’s your Favourite Monty Python Film and Why?
I’m not a big fan of Monty Python so couldn’t tell you really, I have seen Star Wars about 200 times so if the question was on that I could answer it a lot better.
If you were an Alien visiting Earth for the first time, what would you do? Turn away and go back, Help or Conquer?
What a great question..... I would turn away and go back without a doubt!
What is your greatest achievement so far?
Well it really has to be having a number 1 record in the whole of the world, simply because the odds were firmly stacked against me, I was just a boy from Wigan raised on a council estate with no central heating or double glazing, 3 boys had to share the same bedroom and my Dad was a miner, all us boys were expected to go in the mines too. In those day’s no-one really got into show businesses so I think that alone is a fairly big achievement.
If you could speak to every human being on Earth right now, what would your message be?
Don’t forget to eat your crust!
If your life depended on it which soap opera would you do a Cameo in?
Oh god, could of been Sex and the City but that has finished, so would have to be Desperate Housewives, love it to bits, camp as Christmas!
Have you ever felt pressured that what you are singing about effects society?
No, I think Too Shy just has a feel good factor about it, unlike a movie that has a 2 hour commitment to it, you can just be doing your choirs or driving a long in the car and a really good pop song can just make you feel great.
Which brings us nicely onto ‘Too Shy’.... what’s all that about then?
We were in the living room of the bass players flat in Leighton Buzzard, I was living with him and his girlfriend after leaving London, we were just sat writing songs and one of the ideas was this song Too Shy, we were just jamming around, I still have the cassette actually, 30 years ago!! You can hear Stuart in the back ground working on the bridge “DONG DONG DONG” then we eventually put in “Hey Girl, Move a little closer” The phone rings and you can hear the whole 1980ness of it all. There was no deep meaning to it, no we will save the world with it, there were actually 2 demos before the recording and we changed things, moves bits about, we were like movie directors really shooting alternative endings.
That single called ‘1983’, what’s the story about this single?
I did a gig in Norway with Pat Sharp at the beginning of 2011, when we got back he sent me an email saying a couple of guys in Norway are interested in working with me, I contacted them and said, as I do in these situations, send me over 32 bars of music and I’ll play around with it. They sent me a piece with a very retro style to it, I don’t know why but I just started thinking about the early 80’s and then I was singing “I wanna go back in time”. I needed a year and it was so easy to pick a year as 1983 was the year ‘Too Shy’ came out. It was really just another great accident, sent the chorus back to them and they really liked it, I then worked on the verse and sent 2 to 3 ideas back before they really liked it. We sent ideas back and forth, back and forth all using technology, even my vocals recorded here was sent as a downloadable link to their end, very different to 1983!
In 1984 when I was recording the Never Ending Story I had to physically fly to Munich to meet Giorgio Moroder at the studio. It would be nice even today to work with people in the same room but if someone is on the other side of the world and we just throwing ideas around it would take forever.
Do you think Man was created by God or God created Man?
I don’t believe in God, I can’t really say a Yes to either of those really, I just believe in the big bang theory really. One big fat accident! The more problems in the world that are caused by Religion the more I do despise Religion.
A Recent Scientific report stated that Religion would eventually die out completely, what are your thoughts on that, although you may have just answered it, good or bad thing?
WOOHOOOO!!!! Get rid of it!!!
I was on the anti Pope March back in 2010... I love Churches and the Architecture but it is just one big head ache!
You are one of the Giants from a period of Giants, who from that revolutionary period do you most admire?
Oh, I admire lots, Lots and lots.. I’m just totally passionate about music, I was a kid in London with my Sony Walkman and all sorts of dreams running through my head, just as kids do today with their IPods and IPhones, I just had my music on but there was a lot less people doing it then so I felt really different, I had wild hair so I go a lot of looks, I loved it! I had come from the constrains of a small town, I knew I was certainly interested in other things, I don’t know if I had decided I was gay at that point, I had had a lot of girl friends, some nice girl friends and just really into having fun. When you arrive in London it’s like you can be who you wanna be and no-one peering from behind the lace curtain and whispering, you can have more freedom to express yourself.
So back to your question, I was walking round with Don’t Go by Yazoo, the 12” mix of Soft Cells ‘Bedsitter’ which just felt like my life, Human League, Japan... I loved Japan, I walked passed one of their gigs in Hammersmith and thought who are all these weird people outside this place, I was intrigued and wanted to be part of them! I thought they were all weirdo’s but they were just expressing their own art and getting into it.
Duran Duran of course and their first album planet earth was amazing, that was spooky because it was Duran Duran’s keyboard player that took our first cassette into EMI records and produced our first record.
Also Motown stuff, I love the Big Black American, Barry White, I was mad on Barry White!
Do you believe in Ghosts, Ufo’s, Aliens or God?
Obviously I don’t believe in God, I’d like to think there was some all powerful seeing being but I am very sceptical, when I look at the Universe knowing what we now know, I find it hard to believe that there is no other life form out there, what form it takes I don’t know, I doubt we will stumble over another set of humans, I think it would be like Star Trek, there would be mammals with two sets of legs and a brain but a different look, they may breath through a whole in their back! Who knows!
I am not sure that other life forms have been here, I think it is weird that if they came they would want to communicate with us.
Ghosts, never really believed in ghosts but when my Dad died about 9-10 years ago I went home for the funeral to Wigan, it was all very upsetting for my mum as she had been with him for 57 years, I stayed around for 3 days to offer support but then had to go back to London, I was dreading the moment and was slowly putting my bags in my car and felt bad for leaving her on her own. I eventually filled the car up and went into the house to say by to my mum, I was quite tearful as I didn’t want to leave her although she had my brothers with her. I gave her a hug and as I was hugging her I was overwhelmed with a sense of smell, So I was crying, holding my mother and also trying to figure out why I was smelling the same smell as the room Dad had died in! There was just a smell of death or a smell of a spirit; it’s not something you forgot. I said to my mum can you smell that, but she couldn’t. It was just the smell of the hospital room.
What would you still like to achieve?
The is a continuing sense of achievement, Every year poses new challenges, spiritually or mentally you have to deal with these from a new prospective and that in itself is a challenge, keeping a focus and keeping positive is a challenge as I get older. When you have achieved so much, and I have, you talk about a lot in the past sense you wonder what is ahead of you, I have had a few small health issues and so you do have to dig a little dipper to keep positive, so that is the challenge to me. I seem to know so many people that are on some medication for depression or whatever, alcohol or drugs or therapy and so it’s easy to think, look at the cup half empty rather than half full, the bands not happening or my career is over and I will never have another hit record and no label interested in signing me and not do as may gigs, It’s not like it used to be, I am not 23 anymore and I’m not incredibly young and vibrant and quite good looking. And one of the biggest pressures for me is because I’ve not grown up in the public eye and I have been away a while so there is a pressure in not to look like an old man, so I’m at the gym, and swimming and doing the hair. The guy from Flock of seagulls goes out and is now fat and bald, I’m Limahl and if I went out fat and bald people wouldn’t want that. There is genuine affection and I do keep getting calls luckily, there is a temptation just to do nothing and just visit national trust buildings.
That is a very long answer to your question, the challenges are very personal and keeping my head and shit together, looking forward and not looking back to much.
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