THE HUMAN LEAGUE - TALKING

     
 

 

 

 

THIS IS PHIL TALKING...

 
 

 
     
 

KRAFTWERK'S MAN MACHINE ALBUM
“I thought the music sucked”.
Sounds 12th August 1978
 

PERFORMING ON STAGE

“I don’t want to do anything. I don’t see the point in going

out and jumping around and looking dead emotional. It’s

only a song anyway. It’s not as if you were in a play or

something. It’s a song, you’re singing a song."

The Face 1980


REASON FOR TOURING
To me a live show is what you do because you can’t get on TV.”
 NME 12th July 1980

 

DANCING

"I'm strangly rhythmic - my top half's very rhythmic, my

bottom half's very rhythmic, but I can't seem to match them up"

Radio interview 1981

 

CONTEMPORAY BANDS

“I think I would rather die a thousand deaths

than sound like Depeche Mode or Yazoo”

Record Mirror 1982

 

THE RUMOUR OF WORKING WITH QUICY JONES

“ It was just to worry Martin (Rushent), so he might reduce his rates”

The Face 1982

 

THEIR FIRST GROUPIE

She was like a potato with blonde hair!

Perfect Pop book 1982

 

THOMPSON TWINS WANTING TO BE THE HUMAN LEAGUE
It stares out every time they go on TV
from their electro

disco to the funny haircuts, funny clothes, a bit of make-up,

admitting that they’re pop rather than pretending to be

something else and being big in America.

Smash Hits 28th April 1983

 

GIORGIO MORODER
"He's just a geezer really,"
The Adelaide Advertiser 5th September 1985

 

POPSTARS AND MOTORBIKES

I can’t stand all those pop stars who just put bikes in their videos bloody Simon Le Bon on the back of a bike… And Wham did that one where one of them had Triumph on the back of his jacket. Disgusting!

No 1 1985

 

FRIENDS
I’ve never kept in touch with people I’m not working

with – that’s partly why I’ve got no friends!
No 1 1985

 

SUSAN’S DRIVING

“She’s binary in everything. With her opinions everything

is either marvellous or abysmal and with her driving you’re

either standing still or going very, very fast.”

Smash Hits 1986

 

MADONNA

“She looks like the bleedin’ Hulk with a wig on”

Smash Hits 1986

 

CHRIS DE BURGH’S WRITING “THE LADY IN RED” ABOUT HIS WIFE

“What a poof!”

Smash Hits 1986

 

PHILIP ADRIAN WRIGHT LEAVING

“He bought a flat in London about a year ago, you know,

and I’m more or less his oldest friend and he’s never told me he

had a flat. He never gave me the address,  he never gave me the phone number – and he’s never been unfriendly to me!”

Record Mirror 1986

 

HIS SINCLAIR C5 PEDAL-ASSISTED VEHICLE

“I went out on it three or four times at four in the morning so no

one would see me. This lady asked me if I was an invalid”

Smash Hits 1986

 

WEARING HIGH HEELS

“I’ve got an extremely strange walk. With me toes sticking

out, you see. But when I wear high heels, I walk quite well.

Record Mirror 1986

 

FAME AND CARS

“When we first did this LP (Crash) – before we went with Jimmy and Terry – we stayed at a hotel for two and a half months, driving around in a Renault 4 van ‘cos Jim, the drummer, has got one. We’d been number one in half the countries of the world, and I’m sitting in the back of a Renault 4 van with no seats in it. I’m sitting on a tyre! And the guys who open doors outside this hotel – they wouldn’t open the doors for us! You know, Where’s The Rolls?"

Record Mirror 1986

 

BEING A SINGER

“The only reason I’m a singer in the first place is because I’m tall”

The Face 1986

 

PLAYING THE SAME VENUE TWO DAYS IN A ROW

"Some people come to both both concerts

and I've only got one set of clothes"

London gig, Hammersmith Odeon 13th january 1987

 

PET SHOP BOYS
“They’re alright. They’re the new Human League

obviously. I’m intensely jealous of them.”

Melody Maker 15th September 1990

LIVE AID
All those pop stars becoming to sickeningly, unbearably preachy and pompous… They really are beginning to look physically disgusting. And they all like the Royal Family! I can’t believe it!”

Melody Maker 15th September 1990


THE RATE OF ALBUMS
The days of us being an album-every-four-years band are over.

We’re gonna whack ‘em out by the year from now on.
Melody Maker 15th September 1990

 

WORKING HARD

“One thing that we learnt working along with Ian

Stanley is that you have to work hard, whereas we we

had got into the habit of watching the TV really hard”

Sound On Sound Magazine 1995

 

MARIAH CAREY

“A lot of people think she’s just another singer but she’s got something

… and what a stroke of luck the day she swallowed that whistle”

Q Magazine 1995

 

HIS LONELY-HEARTS AD
"Ego-maniac requires someone who doesn't mind

living in a house where there are slugs and mould inside
LAM Magazine 2001

 

LOSING THE FRINGE

“The only problem is that I can’t be effeminate anymore. My girlfriend

still insists I’m gay. Every couple of days she’ll tell me I’m gay"

FHM Magazine 2001

 

BEING A HOSPITAL PORTER

“Brilliant, but where do you go? They don’t pay you

much, and it’s not like you’ll get promoted to be a doctor"

FHM Magazine 2001

 

GETTING A PRINCE ALBERT

“It was embarrassing though, because most piercers are butch skinheads. I got rejected by one lot. I went to this shop in Chesterfield, and made the mistake of  wearing my frilly

shirt, perfume and so on. The guy just looked at me and said, “Nope”.”

FHM Magazine 2001

 

THE DANISH FAN BASE

“We really should dedicate this next song (Together In Electric Dreams)

to our danish contingent. I could recognise you anywhere”

Portsmouth gig, The Pyramids 28/11 2001

 

SURVIVING IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
"I think we’re the last page of the original Dark Knight comic, where Batman is in an underground cavern with his followers and he’s not wearing his costume anymore, He looks like he’s been beaten, but he’s fighting back.
That’s where I think we are at the moment."

www.chartattack.com 22nd October 2002

THRIVE IN ADVERSITY
"But now it's quite hard to cope with no one wanting to be nasty to us. I'm not sure it's good for creativity. Sadly even our rivalry with Heaven 17 has passed. We see each other from time to time and remember the real laughs we had together. We can't even keep that hatred up."

Daily Mirror 28th November 2003
 

NOT HAVING CHILDREN
"To me, having children is like walking into a shop and saying, "I'll take anything you want to give me - I don't care how it turns out. Oh, and here's my bank account number - take as much money as you want'."

Daily Mirror 28th November 2003
 

THE LOYAL FANS
"I have always had respect for our fans. At the very top of my list of favourite people are those who buy tickets that say Human League on it and second are those who buy our records."

Birmingham Evening Mail 18th December2004

 

GIRLS ALOUD

"I'm not here to knock them, but the fact is that they are a bunch of Page 3 girls who release songs, not for musical reasons, but as souvenirs - as another form of merchandise. It's more important for them to stay in the gossip pages of the tabloids than produce music."

Irish Times 2005

 

WRITING A BIOGRAPHY

"If I told the truth, too many people would have to die.

I know too much. Ha ha ha. Far too much."

Irish Times 2005

 

FIRST GIG

"I was sos cared that I could only sing the

same verse of a song over and over."

Hot Press 2005

 

MOST EMBARRASSING THING DONE WHILE DRUNK

""Don't you know who I am" moments....I ended up doing it

to the bouncers trying to get into a Take That reception after

the show they were doing in Sheffield. That is pretty bad."

Hot Press 2005

 

SONG PLAYED AT HIS FUNRAL

"The jingle from the first Smith's salt and vinegar crips ad."

Hot Press 2005

 

ABOUT PERFORMING
I think it's probably quite embarrassing, a bit like your

dad dancing at a wedding, but it's what we do.
Liverpool Echo 2005

 

FALLEN ON STAGE IN BRIGHTON 2003
"I skidded and sprawled on the floor. I was pretty thin at the time and when I looked up I could see the audience thinking, Oh, that poor old man, I hope he's not hurt himself, I hope he can get up."
The Brighton Argus 2005