Pete Burns

Peter Jozzeppi Burns (5 August 1959 – 23 October 2016) was an English singer, songwriter and television personality who formed the band Dead or Alive in 1980 during the new wave era and acted as the band's lead vocalist and principal songwriter.

He sold over 17 million albums and 36 million singles worldwide and also gave successful English songwriting and record production trio Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) their first UK No. 1 hit single.

His first three albums all reached the UK Top 30, with Youthquake reaching the Top 10.

Additionally, the band had seven singles which made the UK Top 40 and two of the band's singles reached the US Top 20.

Pete Burns was born the youngest of two children on 5 August 1959 in Port Sunlight, Wirral.

Burns's mother, Evelina von Hudec, was German-born (Heidelberg) and, according to Burns's autobiography, her first marriage was to a German Freiherr.

As her father was Jewish, she moved to Vienna to escape the Nazis.

At a tea dance in Vienna, she met an English soldier from Liverpool named Francis Burns.

Until he was 5-years-old, Burns spoke only German which resulted in local children spending days outside his house shouting "Heil Hitler".

From a young age, Burns developed a penchant for wearing costumes and he became obsessed with Native American culture going so far as to wear an Indian headdress constantly along with having his mother put up a tepee at his school playground.

By his own admission, Burns was a lonely child who preferred drawing and painting to interacting with other children.

Burns stated that he inherited his love of fashion from his mother: "She'd do five costume changes a day and had a real thing about make-up. Every day at 5:30 a.m., she'd barricade herself into the front room and do her face."

Burns also later described his mother's alcoholism, drug addiction, and multiple suicide attempts which were the result of her having suffered a nervous breakdown when she learned the fate of her family members during World War II.

However, he maintained that she was "absolutely the best mother in the world" despite the child abuse he experienced:

I lived, I know now, a very solitary childhood.

I had nothing to compare it with, so it seemed fine to me.

I rarely left the house.

I didn't need to; I had a secret world I shared with my mother.

In those early years, I couldn't possibly have wished for a better friend.

[...] She gave me the power to dream, the power to remove myself from where I might not be having any fun, and go inside my head and be somewhere else.

According to Burns, school was "almost non-existent", and his mother frequently kept him away so he could spend the day with her.

Burns was also endlessly taunted by teachers and peers, before being thrown out of school at 14 after being summoned to the headmaster's office because he had arrived at school with "no eyebrows, Harmony-red hair, and one gigantic earring".

"I dropped out of school, because it got to be too dangerous for somebody who looked a little different. At that time, I was experimenting with hair dyes and stuff like that, and I was going to a particularly macho-oriented school and causing too much controversy."

Summarizing his time at school, Burns stated: "I learnt nothing at school. I hated it. I was just really into David Bowie so I shaved off my eyebrows and dyed my hair orange, I was alienated in the seventies at school."

Shortly after being expelled, Burns was raped by a man who drove him to Raby Mere and threatened him with an air gun.

Between 1977 and 1984, Burns worked as a shop assistant at Probe Records, a small independent record shop in Liverpool.

His debut album, Sophisticated Boom Boom, was released in 1984, producing a series of minor hits in the United Kingdom, most notably his version of "That's the Way (I Like It)" (originally recorded by KC and the Sunshine Band) which gave the band their first UK Top 40 hit.

Their second album, Youthquake, brought Burns and the band international recognition, largely due to the success of the lead single, "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" which reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 11 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1985.

The band's third album, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, was released in 1986, scoring several further hit singles including "Brand New Lover" which peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and spent two weeks at No. 1 on the American dance chart in addition to "Something in My House" which peaked at No. 12 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 3 on the American dance chart.

In 1987, a greatest hits album was released entitled Rip It Up containing singles from their two prior albums and the following year, Nude was released with singles "Turn Around and Count 2 Ten" and "Come Home with Me Baby" being massive chart successes in America and Japan.

Burns had a significant impact and influence on Japanese pop culture especially with J-Pop and Visual Kei.

He also achieved greater superstar status in the region than both Michael Jackson and Madonna.

Burns continued to achieve celebrity status in the British media following his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother 4, in which he received attention for his verbal tirades against housemates Jodie Marsh and Traci Bingham.

He finished in fifth place on the finale, receiving 13.6% of the vote, and appeared on further television reality shows, including as a presenter.

Burns was noted for his deep baritone voice along with his flamboyant dress style and androgynous gender bender appearance.

He was an advocate for the LGBT community and has been recognised as a gay icon and an individual who helped bring gay music into mainstream popularity.

Burns was also the subject of tabloid speculation over his addiction to cosmetic surgery which bankrupted him and caused fatal health problems.

In December 2016, Billboard ranked Dead or Alive as the 96th most successful "dance artist" of all time.

In 2020, The Guardian ranked the song No. 5 in their list of "The 100 Greatest UK No. 1s" and Classic Pop ranked it No. 1 in their 2021 list of "Top 40 Stock Aitken Waterman songs".

The album also contained three other UK Top 30 hits and was certified Gold by both the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).