«POP ART IS FOR EVERYONE»

Q: A recent article in The Guardian said that the Pet Shop Boys “merge pop and art perfectly” and compared what you guys have done in this regard to The Beatles. There aren’t many bands who’ve collaborated both with pop groups like Girls Aloud and experimental filmmakers like Derek Jarman …

A: No, there probably aren’t. Well, we love collaboration, we love bringing people into our world, into the world of pop. Not many people work with architects, but Zaha Hadid did set designs for us [on the 1999/2000 world tour]. I think it makes the whole thing more interesting, because pop music is a visual art as well as being about music, and looking at different ways to present yourself is always very exciting. We genuinely love pop music, which is why we’re interested in Girls Aloud, but we also like independent film and we also like fashion. So it’s just interesting to bring all those elements together, to see what happens. We always try to do things differently from anyone else, we try to be unique. You can’t really reinvent the wheel but we do try to bring other elements into pop music; we always try to work with architects, artists, opera designers.

Chris Lowe
The Pet Shop Boys