This interview with Steve Coy was done via telephone.
Where did you get the name Nukleopatra?
How would you describe your new image, and your lineup?
How long have you have you been with them?
Then they seemed to fit in quite well actually.
Have you heard of Lana Pellay?
Yeah, is that Pete Singing?
Well, see it this way, it caused a lot of stir wether or not Pete sang on that record.
How have your fans changed over the years?
How do you and Pete get along?
So you're saying he doesn't have an attitude problem he's just shy.
Certainly, but you have to know that when your up on stage that you're gonna have a following.
You've been working together for a long time now?
No, no certainly not. If you could have one wish fulfilled, what would it be?
Halleluia!
Do you have any special message for anyone who sees this web site?
STEVE COY INTERVIEW
If you dissect the name, and look at the way it works out like a play on words There's Nuclear which is like a nuclear bomb, there's Leo in the middle which is Pete's birth sign. The Patra is the way Jamaican people say your name if its Peter. Petra if it's a girl. And the Cleopatra is all down to this new kind of Egyptian look that Peter has got. It's kind of a play on words if you slice the name up, Nuclear-Leo-Patra and Cleopatra.
Yeah well, the new image up came about basically, by messing around trying to find a new lineup for the band. Over the past few years we basically came down to the decision that we rather go on tour with more than session musicians, we go on tour with people that we actually like. That actually look good and look like they're having a good time on stage. Which is what it's all about as far as we are concerned.
They've been working with us for about a year, and they started working with us first at a show we did in London last year at the Astoria Club. And then they did the big Gay Pride festival to like a hundred and ninety thousand people in London and then it carried on from that basically.
Absolutely.
Lana Pellay as in Pistol in my pocket?
No, Absolutely not! Lana Pellay is basically, what you would call a transsexual socialite. Alan Pellay - he calls himself Lana Pellay basically, the record was made by a guy who used to work at PWL Records and who owned a publishing company. I think it was called All Boys Music and he was a big fan of DOA and Lana Pellay used to send fan letters to me, to Pete to all of us basically in DOA. Just saying how much he loved our music, and she got in touch with this guy and he wanted to make a record just like DOA. He basically took her in the studio and they worked on the vocal and put them through a harmonizer basically to make it sound like Pete. People say it sounds like Pete but if you listen to Pete Burns voice and you listen to that record there's absolutely no comparison. Well, anyone can go into a studio and steal the disks that I programmed and basically transpose the chords and put it in a key if somebody wants to sound like its a DOA sequenced dance record. Yeah you know it's basically a joke record. It's a funny record basically I mean we don't really care about it, it's no big deal to us whether people want to imitate our records or not. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery anyway.
You know it's basically a kids' tacky record. People can believe what they want to believe. When we make a record our name's on it and that's the bottom line.
Well I don't think so, I mean people tend to grow up with DOA's music. I think in a way it's because a lot of people have this thing about DOA being their own special band and they know that we are serious in our attitude we will not allow the music industry to use us and abuse us and do what they want with us, we're pretty creatively in control artistically in control. We do things our own way, you know we write our own songs, we produce our own stuff we record and we basically don't need any producers or any writers to wipe our own asses like people like Bananarama that those people do, basically they're just talent-less turds. We basically do everything ourselves, our records are absolutely from our hearts and you know as far as that's concerned, I think people who follow DOA know that. The records are unique because of one ingredient totally and that's Pete Burns' vocal.
People don't understand Pete, Pete has two personas. Pete has a persona for on stage and Pete has a persona off stage. And the persona on stage is very strong and very self willed, very dominating, and very in control. And the persona off stage, Pete is a very shy person.
Well that's it basically yeah, and people don't understand this you know and people see him and think he's flamboyant and he's loud not a shy person at all, but I think in a way the flamboyant loud side of his character that people think that is their all the time. They get confused by that fact, the stage persona and the real life persona. Pete's a very shy person and people come up to him all the time, he would rather approach them, than them approach him.
Absolutely, you know Pete gives time to people but if there are a lot of people getting in in face all the time then its like having dogs around you, I'm sure he'd much rather meet people on a one on one basis. He's the most talented person I would ever work with. He's the only person I would ever work with in the music industry, nobody holds a candle to him as far as I'm concerned.
For over sixteen years - Some people know that I'm still a good thing, and I'm one of those people. The two other guys that were in the band originally, basically they lost their attitude, they lost all the fire in the belly. They settled down with a wife and a child and decided to go fat, go bald and turn into boring old farts basically and we don't want those kind of people in our group.
For me personally, and I only speak for myself, I wish that the music industry could wake up and see the potential that DOA's got. See the core base of fans we've got world wide not just in America, not just in England but around the world, in Japan in Europe everywhere we play a show anywhere and the show is sold out the audience reaction is fantastic. Everybody around the world says to me, why don't you release records regularly in our country, and it's simple because we will not allow the music industry to make us music industry fodder. Use us for what they want to use us for and then get rid of us. We want longevity, we want a long career we've got valid things to say, we've got a valid lesson to teach people. Be want you want to be, do what you want to do, and to heck with the consequences, cause you only get to live one life.
You know and that's the way it is.
Basically we'd just like to thank everybody who still got an interest in DOA for supporting the band all these years we want everybody to know that we appreciate every, every piece of support that people give us we appreciate everybody that turns up and pays money to see us play and we do read every single letter that comes to the fan club. We know personally the name of everybody who is a member of the fan club, who writes to us and we occasionally write back to people.