It might be to do with their differing political stances. It was a really touching moment for me in actual fact.” Still, he wonders why he and Somerville never became friends. At the book launch, the Communards’ Jimmy Somerville “presented me with a handbag as a gift, and said he thought it was very brave of me, and he didn’t know whether he would have been so brave. To use his phrase, Johnson “outed” himself as having HIV in his 1994 autobiography A Bone in My Flute. So I was fully expecting that I was next.” It got closer and closer to me as the years went by. “And he wasn’t the only friend who died in 1991. The year of his death, 1991, was also the year Freddie Mercury died. Headline act: with Jools Holland and Leslie Ash on The Tube, in 1985. And he appeared to me in a dream – he gave me a hug and said: ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’” Maybe for a short period… But he was one of those people that you can love. “We weren’t boyfriends in the traditional sense. He was born in Liverpool the day before Johnson. One of these friends is the inspiration for “You’re in My Dreams Tonight”, a soulful ballad that appears towards the end of Europa. So I’m kind of living for them also in some ways.” Many beautiful friends who were my gay extended family have gone. But I’m not whining about it, and I never will. I’ve developed Type 2 diabetes now because of that, and have to take more medication for that. “Unfortunately the drugs have side effects. “But I’m in the same boat with millions of other people who have other illnesses,” he continues. I do everything possible to support my health.” I take copious amounts of vitamins and medications. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I haven’t done for years. “A considerable amount of effort goes into it,” he continues, quieter now. “Well thanks very much!” he says, laughing. “Even then, I didn’t believe it was going to work.” He’s been on combination therapy since 1996, since it became available on the NHS. ![]() It’s just not my style.” That’s perhaps what’s got him where he is now. Wanting something better, or more, or different, to the way things are. But I suppose I’ve got some kind of… bloody-minded aspect to me. I’m not a bruiser in any sort of physical sense. It was just, she was a human being – even though she did try to have me kicked out of the band from as early as March 1984 because I was someone who she thought knew their own mind and was going to be trouble.” “I wasn’t really particularly trying to mend a bridge. “Well, there’d been no communication between us since he took me to court.” He shrugs. “I received a reply from his secretary that she would pass it on. He pauses before telling me about the email he sent Horn, offering his sympathies. Photograph: Sipa Press/REXĮarlier this year Sinclair died, eight years after suffering brain damage which left her in a permanent vegetative state. On message: with band members Mark O’Toole, Peter Gill, Paul Rutherford, Brian Nash meeting Gene Kelly in Los Angeles in 1984. The judge eventually decided in Johnson’s favour. A bitter two-year court case – Johnson versus producer/label owner Trevor Horn and his wife Jill Sinclair – followed. Johnson tried to quit the band after the release of their anti-climactic second album Liverpool, but ZTT, the label to which Frankie were signed, tried to prevent him signing with another label. But in the classic music showbusiness model, huge success begat ruinous litigation. ![]() For Frankie’s American album launch the band – Johnson and backing vocalist Paul Rutherford, both gay, plus the squarely straight lads who played the instruments – were driven through Los Angeles in a tank. There was fun and games as the five-piece band dominated the pop landscape for 12 hectic months, a time of the ubiquitous Frankie Says… T-shirts, a BBC ban of both the song and the video for “Relax” and jet-set stunts. “I’m very good at burning bridges,” says Johnson. For one thing, memories of Frankie can only be tinged with bitterness. But as Johnson knows better than anyone, nostalgia has its limits. Given the current wave of anniversary excitement – and the fact that it’s his first-ever solo tour – surely he’s a bankable ticket? “Well you would have thought so,” he replies, without rancour. Video for the new single ‘In And Out Of Love’, from Holly Johnson’s Europa album.
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