He only scored two real hits, but everyone over 40 jumps at the name Dexys Midnight Runners. With Come On Eileen, Kevin Rowland and his band scored the best sing-along of the ’80s. Now he is back with a piece called The Feminine Divine. It’s more than a comeback. “I’m getting back into life,” he says now.
Kevin, back in time. Can you explain why Come On Eileen was such a hype at the time?
“We had been working for years and had scored a hit (Geno), but I had no real direction. I was actually just doing something. The key to the great success was violinist Helen (Helen Bevington) who I found at a conservatory in Birmingham. Suddenly the penny dropped and I turned the whole thing over. We put on dungarees, rolled up the legs and voilà, the new Dexys Midnight Runners was born. It all sounds very logical but everything fell into place. Suddenly there was that sound.”
What kind of man were you at that time?
“Not an easy person. I was wild, busy and pushy. So to speak, a real slave driver. To become a band member, you had to resign. It was an all or nothing adventure. In my youth I was a bastard who terrorized my parents and those around me. But I could sing and knew that this was my escape to make something of life. In the beginning we dressed like gangsters who looked straight out of a Robert De Niro mafia movie. Not that there was a big plan behind it. Because a few years later I just as easily put on dungarees. Actually, I was quite directionless.”
Actually, Dexys Midnight Runners created a kind of gang at the time. A group of people who lived together. Almost like a commune.
“I had a good idea about that. Someone came in with one of those dungarees and then the penny dropped. It was the moment to put together a kind of ‘gang’. We grew our hair out to create a pony tail and I wanted everyone to be in great shape. Running together and working out together, I did everything to achieve my goal. But above all it fell into place musically. We had a sound and a purpose. Well, sound. I would never achieve that goal.”
How do you look back on Come On Eileen?
“It’s a song that I didn’t write myself, but it changed my life. Number 1 in England and America and the rest of Europe. Suddenly I was wealthy and could do all the things my parents dreamed about. But it didn’t make me happy. I’m still restless, but at that time I wanted everything. I had all kinds of plans but was unable to realize many of them. Well, and then the drugs came. It started with an ecstasy pill in a club and then came the cocaine. For a manic person like me, something like this is almost always fatal.”
“It was my salvation and I still go to meetings so as not to relapse. Once I had kicked the habit I came back to my senses and started enjoying life again.” It was the prelude to his biggest mistake in the music business. In 1999, Rowland had himself portrayed for the cover of his solo album My Beauty, wearing fishnet stockings around his slender legs and a pearl necklace around his neck. Rowland laughs.
You also made a solo album entitled My Beauty. The cover of that record was striking, to say the least. You were not appreciated for that.
“Oh, it all got so terribly blown up. It was simply a statement. Very intuitive but real. At that time I also just wore dresses and I wanted to show that there are no barriers for me, both style-wise and emotionally. I am still very proud of those songs and sometimes still play them live. It’s become a bit of a cult thing now.”
And now there is the new album The Femini Devine. What a surprising piece of work!
“I’ve been thinking about making this for a long time. I have had a number of songs for decades but could not find a concept for them. I see this record as a journey of sexuality. I could never have made this before because I am a different person than I was 40 years ago. In recent years I have learned to look at women differently. This is the result. I grew up knowing that you should respect women, but not more than that. Ultimately, I discovered that women really are goddesses. Superior to men in so many ways”
