Culture Club is an English band formed in 1981. The original line-up is back and have announced their new “Life Tour.”  The original line-up is Boy George – vocals, Roy Hay – guitar/keyboards/piano/backing vocals, Mikey Craig – bass/piano/backing vocals, and Jon Moss – drums/percussion/electronic drums/steel drum/backing vocals.  I had the opportunity to talk with George while he is in Australia filming The Voice Australia as a coach, along with Kelly Rowland and Delta Goodrum. I asked him how this came about and he said, “I did a season in the U.K. and I really enjoyed that. Then I had a little break and I’d been offered Australia a couple of times and then I had been over here on tour and had a really good time.  I thought, ‘Well, you know what? I can stay in Australia for a few months, I could live here.’ And so, we talked to them and I came last year, I was here for a large chunk of time last year and had an amazing experience on the show. And then decided to come back this year and have an equally brilliant time.”

Boy George is a man of many talents. Besides being a talented musician, he is a writer, DJ, fashion designer, photographer and actor. I asked George is there anything that he hasn’t done that he would like to and he responded, “I suppose in a way, the answer to that is that I’m very lucky because I have the freedom to do pretty much what I choose to do, in terms of being creative. I’ve got quite fascinated with the whole arts thing the last few years. So at some point, I’d like to do an exhibition. I like the idea of, I actually feel that music, the music industry is a little bit restrictive and that kind of holds you back creatively. I think it always has, just the nature of it being a business. So I think art is like me, I’m always looking for other areas where nobody can get in your way. There’s always people to tell you you’re not a real artist, you’re not a real DJ, whatever it may be. But, I suppose for me, I’m always looking for those other doors to go through, where at least I have some degree of freedom in terms of my self expression. I’m not a commercially minded person. I am very kind of, guttural when it comes to creativity. I go with what I feel and things don’t have to make sense. That’s where I rely on my manager to say, I’m not the person to do, to ask this question, because I’m always gonna come at it from a sort of punk rock perspective. That’s why I love what I do, there’s a kind of irony in the fact that the music business, you know, the key word is business. It is kind of one of the most uncreative industries that you can possibly ever imagine.” Over the years, George feels the industry has gotten worse and says, “But I think there’s always amazing music being made. And now we’ve got the internet and things are changing, but it feels like the industry just refuses to take any risk and you just get spoon-fed the same stuff over and over. Even stuff that you like starts to get boring, because you just keep hearing it. And I think you just have to have things that are a juxtaposition, you have to have things that are wrong, that are off center. If I was doing a music show, I would have the hits and I would have some things that people haven’t heard. That’s how you keep things creative, by giving people things they’re not sure about and like, ‘Oh, what’s this?'” George says, ” There was a lot of opposition to me in the beginning from the industry. David Bowie, Madonna, The Beatles, the list goes on. None of these people had an easy ride. But I think for a creative industry, there needs to be a bit more creativity and a bit more risk.”

Culture Club is getting ready to launch their U.S. tour with the B-52s and Tom Bailey. They will be starting the tour in Florida, and I asked George what should fans expect from the performance and George responded, “I think that people ultimately want to keep in a really good place. They want to have fun, they want to be taken on a musical journey.  They want to hear some new shit, they want to hear things they know. It’s kind of a sort of juggling game playing live, because you wanna give people something that they love and you want to give people something they don’t know yet and you want to and you wanna balance it. And that first kind of gig or first few gigs, is where you find out what works. And you go, “Oh that didn’t really work,” or “Maybe we need to do this.” But you know, you’re constantly thinking on your feet and there are people out there who, haven’t seen us in a while. You know, so they’re like, they’re not ever sure what to expect and I love that sort of energy. You know, I did, I remember about five or six years ago, I did Glastonbury, I did it on my own with my own band. And not with Culture Club and as I was about to go on stage, the guy was like, “What do you do?” I was like, “Don’t worry, I couldn’t, its going to be fine.” And just for a split second thought,”Oh, what if they hate me?” Anyway, I ended up doing like some sort of punk rock version of Karma Chameleon, and there was 400,00 people losing their shit. And it was quite nice that people just don’t know what to expect and that creates sort of a really nice energy. And from my point of view, I want them to have the best night of their lives. I always say to a crowd, “We’re gonna get you, don’t worry about that,” At some point you’ll be out of your seat or whatever, you’ll be dancing in your seat. I mean that’s how you know you’ve done a good gig, that you just you look around the room and there are people dancing like no one’s watching them. There are people that normally refuse to stand, they’re standing and there’s people that don’t generally move in their seats that are kind of moving. And I always say to everyone, “Have the kind of gig you want to have. Don’t feel pressured to do anything.” I mean, I might say to you, “Oh, stand up,” but you don’t have to. As long as you’re enjoying it. I just like people to engage and lose yourself in the night and don’t over-analyze it, just have fun, it’s what you’re there for.”

George tells me his favorite songs to perform live are his newer songs because he said, “They are much more relevant to who I am now. My voice is very different now, I like my voice now. And you can’t really mess too much with classics. You can’t do it, you can’t go too avante garde with those old hits. You have to kind of like serve them as kind of the main meal, and then throw in a few new things and obviously we’ve got the new album coming and I’m really excited about this record. I know everyone says that but I, trust me, I’m the most critical person of what I do and we’re made an amazing album!”

The first single off the album will be released in September and the album shortly after. George tells me, “When you’re arguing about what should be the first single to be released, that’s a good sign. I feel very proud of it.” The writing process for Culture Club is that it has to have a strong storyline. George says, “I always feel like songs have to have some sort of content. It doesn’t have to be literal but it certainly has to have a starting point. There may be a situation where the guys have been working on the groove but they haven’t got an idea for it and I’ll come in and say, “Oh, that’s so weird, this works with something I’ve had in my mind for two or three years.” It started off as a full on Johnny Cash track and now it’s grown quite a bit. I have a much more hardy approach to songwriting because I think, I read stuff about Bowie, taking like three years to get a song, but when he did, it’d turn out to be something like Fame or whatever, then it’s worth going back and pulling things apart and saying, “Well this bit’s really good and this bit’s wrong. And you know, it’s not an exact science, there’s things you get really excited about when you produce them. There’s no fixed way but I always feel like I’ve gotta be singing about something. And I think you have to be involved to do that. One of the things that gives me and advantage is that I actually go out into the world. I ride the subway, I listen to what people are saying, I eavesdrop on people’s conversations. If I hear something good, I write it down, it doesn’t matter. I was talking to my friend earlier about relationships and I’m saying,”You know that moment that when you’re obsessed with someone and you wake up and you’re over it?” And she said,” It’s really good when you get there first,” I said, “Oh, that’s a great lyric.” I wrote it down, be careful what you say to me because it could be, the next hit!”

Don’t miss Culture Club performing at the Yuengling Center at the USF Sun Dome on Saturday, June 30th in Tampa, Florida.  It will definitely be a show that you don’t want to miss and bring back some memories. Follow Culture Club or Boy George on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for updates on their tour and new music!