Early career and band formation Between 1977 and 1984, Burns worked as a shop assistant at
Probe Records, a small independent record shop in
Liverpool. Burns had been hired by Probe owner Geoff Davies due to his outlandish appearance (which included an "eighteenth-century shepherd's smock, an upside-down straw top hat with his dreads cascading out of the top, full make-up and massive heeled boots") that he hoped would attract customers. Burns later said that "Geoff only employed me for the glamour" and "people would travel from
Wales and
Leeds, just to look at me. They used to call me King – I was like King Punk." wishing he had been able to sing
falsetto like
Sylvester. He also had an uncomfortable relationship with the corporate music industry and expressed disgust at the way it functioned. He always refused to allow record company staff to hear his music before it was completed, which "didn't make [the executives] very pleased" and refused to promote his work; "I used to let it sink or swim on its own." Burns continued in early 1979 with a new band, Nightmares in Wax (originally called Rainbows Over Nagasaki), featuring a
gothic post-punk sound, with backing from keyboardist Martin Healy, guitarist Mick Reid, bassist Rob Jones (who left to be replaced by Walter Ogden), and drummer Paul Hornby (who also exited after the band's formation to be replaced by Phil Hurst). and recorded demos which included a cover of the
Simon Dupree and the Big Sound song "Kites", a feature of their early shows. Although signed to the Eric's Records label, their only release, a three-track 7-inch EP titled
Birth of a Nation, appeared in March 1980 on Inevitable Records. A 12-inch single featuring two of the tracks from the EP, "Black Leather" and "Shangri-La", was released in 1985. The EP featured "Black Leather", which turned halfway into
KC and the Sunshine Band's "
That's the Way (I Like It)". In 1980, after replacing several members, Burns changed the band's name to
Dead or Alive. Dead or Alive's singles started charting on the
UK Indie Chart, beginning with 1982's "The Stranger" reaching No. 7. This prompted major label
Epic Records to sign the band in 1983. Their first release for Epic was the single "
Misty Circles", which appeared at No. 100 on the major UK Singles Chart in 1983. Two more singles co-produced by
Zeus B. Held ("
What I Want" and "
I'd Do Anything") were released but success continued to elude the band. The band's debut album,
Sophisticated Boom Boom, was released in May 1984 and featured their first Top 40 UK single, "That's the Way (I Like It)", a cover of the 1975 hit by KC and the Sunshine Band. The album was a minor success in the UK, where it peaked at No. 29. As Burns and his band achieved greater media exposure, his eccentric and
androgynous appearance often led to comparisons with
Culture Club and its lead singer
Boy George as well as "
Calling Your Name" singer
Marilyn. During his time in
Liverpool, Burns became acquainted with
Courtney Love shortly after she moved to the area in 1982 using money from a small
trust fund. When Burns became "the local celebrity punk", he remembered how Love "would call me all sorts of names on the street and it got to the stage where I just sort of loved her for that. She had, like, a complete lack of respect for the divinity I had in the city at the time." He also noted, "I'd never met Burns, but knew of his reputation for being evil."
Chart success located at
Bluecoat Chambers, 2010 The band released its second album
Youthquake (US No. 31, UK No. 9) in May 1985, produced by the then-fledgling production team of
Mike Stock,
Matt Aitken, and
Pete Waterman, known as
Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW). Desiring to move on from the sound of the band's debut studio album,
Sophisticated Boom Boom, Burns wanted "
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" to be produced by the little-known team, in the
Hi-NRG style of their 1984 UK hits "
You Think You're a Man" by
Divine, and "
Whatever I Do (Wherever I Go)" by
Hazell Dean. Recording of the single was plagued by arguments between the band and producers, The song proved to be SAW's first chart-topping single. The track also hit No. 11 in the US and No. 1 in Canada. In a 2009 interview discussing the song, Burns disputed the Hi-NRG label, saying "to me it was just
disco", and describing the song as "a pop hit, not a hi-NRG hit". Burns would later criticise SAW for their methods, describing that "they took our sound and just basically wheeled it off with a load of other imbeciles, and that makes me a bit sour." Additionally, Burns said that
12-inch singles comprised over 70% of the original sales of "You Spin Me Round", and because these were regarded by the record label as promotional tools rather than sales, the band had to threaten legal action against the label before they received the royalties on them. Other album tracks released as singles included "
Lover Come Back To Me" (No. 11), "
In Too Deep" (No. 14), and "
My Heart Goes Bang (Get Me to the Doctor)" (No. 23) which all reached the UK Top 30. Despite the international chart-topping success of
Youthquake and its lead single, Burns said it was the album that he was "most dissatisfied with" and recalled that "one of the unhappiest days of my life was when
Spin Me reached No. 1 – and I mean really unhappy. Because I knew it would be downhill all the way after that." SAW's recording engineer Karen Hewitt recalled the singer appeared to thrive on his often explosive and confrontational dynamic with Stock and Aitken during the album sessions. The lead single "
Brand New Lover" became a modest UK hit, peaking at No. 31, but was more successful in the US, where it reached No. 15 on the US Hot 100, and No. 1 on the US
Billboard dance chart. Clashes between the band and the label continued over the song's music video, with Epic Records reportedly objecting to a "mildly suggestive" sequence involving Burns and a banana. "By the time we got to 'Something in My House', I felt I wanted to express myself on film, as well as record, amuse myself, show my sense of humour," Burns wrote on the liner notes to his
Evolution: The Videos compilation DVD. "Well apparently the manner in which I 'peeled a banana' seemed to work against me/us! And, it was downhill all the way after that." Recording of the song was also fraught, with Burns alleging that producer Mike Stock erased his original vocal take after objecting to the singer's use of the phrase "wicked queen"; a lyrical
double entendre implying reference to a gay relationship. "We would butt heads so fucking badly; it was unbelievable," Burns told journalist James Arena in his book ''Europe's Stars of 80s Dance Pop''. "That's why we eventually walked away from them. For instance, there was a lyric from 'Something in My House' where I make reference to a wicked queen. "The actual producer, Mike Stock stopped me and said I couldn't use that term because it would mean the record is about gay people. I was like, 'Fuck this, it's going on!' They actually wiped the original vocal, but then Pete Waterman came back and said, 'Let him do it the way he wants to.'" The song also proved to be the act's final Top 40 hit with an original release in the UK, and their last Top 20 hit in Australia. was released to club DJs, featuring a series of stronger dialogue clips from
The Exorcist – with the track described as "unique" in its capacity as the only known example of a "filthy, obscene [and] sexually explicit" Stock Aitken Waterman record. A third single, "Hooked on Love", failed to make the UK Top 40 amid Burns' battle with the label over their refusal to prioritise his preferred mix, which featured a "Gothic" overtone. In 1986, Burns recommended model
Mandy Smith to Waterman. Smith was already well-known in the British
tabloids due to her relationship with
Rolling Stones bassist
Bill Wyman, which started when she was 13. Smith became the very first artist signed to Waterman's
PWL Records in September 1986 when she was 16 years old. In 1987, Dead or Alive released their greatest hits album
Rip It Up, and a concert tour of the same name with dates in Europe, the United States, and Japan. Film footage was recorded at two shows at Tokyo's
Nippon Budokan on 9 October and at Osaka's
Osaka-jō Hall on 11 October, and released on video cassette (
VHS) and
Laserdisc that same year under the title
Rip It Up Live. The concert was eventually issued as bonus material for the first time on DVD as part of the 2003 compilation release. Due to their immense popularity in the region,
Michael Jackson was forced to reschedule his Japanese tour dates during his
Bad World Tour so as not to conflict with Dead or Alive. One contemporary Japanese newspaper even ran the headline, "Forget
Madonna, we've got Pete Burns!" {{external media During this time, Burns turned down offers to tour with Madonna for her
Who's That Girl World Tour as well as with
Bon Jovi to be with his mother when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Burns later recalled: "A manager left an answerphone message telling me, 'If you don't want your career to die of cancer like your mother, you should pack your bags.'" During the album's production Tim Lever and Mike Percy were fired from the band. The pair later formed careers as mixers and producers; both owned and operated Steelworks Studios in
Sheffield and experienced success writing and mixing songs for acts like
S Club 7,
Blue, and
Robbie Williams. From the information booklet in
Sophisticated Boom Box MMXVI, Burns stated: The album featured the single "
Turn Around and Count 2 Ten", which reached No. 2 in the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart and No. 1 for a record-breaking seventeen weeks in Japan. It was followed by the singles "Baby Don't Say Goodbye", which peaked at No. 6 on the
Billboard Dance Club Songs chart and "Come Home with Me Baby", which spent thirteen weeks at No. 1 on the US
Hot Dance Music/Club Play due to a popular remix by producer
Lewis Martineé. An
acoustic album
Love, Pete was also made available during a US personal appearance tour in 1992 and was widely
bootlegged with the title
Fan the Flame (Part 2): The Acoustic Sessions. Burns strongly criticised its subsequent distribution. In the early 1990s, Burns and Steve Coy signed with Waterman's
PWL Records and recording was started on new tracks co-written and produced by Stock, but the sessions were aborted when Stock abruptly quit over his dissatisfaction with his share of publishing royalties on the new material. Work on new material recommenced with PWL staffer Barry Stone taking over co-production duties. In 2000, Dead or Alive released
Fragile, a collection of remakes with several new tracks and covers including
U2's "
Even Better Than the Real Thing" and
Nick Kamen's "I Promised Myself". The first song on the album, "
Hit and Run Lover", was a
hit single, peaking at No. 2 on the Japanese charts. A new remix album,
Unbreakable: The Fragile Remixes, was released in 2001. This was followed in 2003 with a greatest hits album entitled
Evolution: the Hits along with a video compilation that was also released on DVD. "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" was re-released as a single to promote the album with it reaching No. 23 on the UK Singles Chart. , 2008
Solo music career and collaborations In 1994, Burns collaborated with the Italian
Eurodance-duo Glam to produce the single "
Sex Drive", which was later re-recorded for
Nukleopatra. The original version topped at number 12 in Italy. In 1999, Burns covered Madonna's song "Why's It So Hard" from
Erotica for
Virgin Voices: A Tribute to Madonna, a compilation album featuring various artists covering her most iconic songs. In 2004, Burns enjoyed solo success with the
Pet Shop Boys-produced track "Jack and Jill Party". The track reached No. 75 in the
UK Singles Chart. On 7 September 2010, Burns's solo single "Never Marry an Icon", produced and co-written by the Dirty Disco, was released to the
iTunes Store. The single was released by band member Steve Coy's label,
Bristar Records. That year, Burns also appeared with Dutch Eurodance group
Vengaboys in the music video for their song "
Rocket to Uranus".
Media career In December 2003, the
BBC apologised to its viewers after Burns swore once on its pre-
9pm watershed Liquid News show when asked about his views on the
Michael Jackson trial. Burns also appeared in the first episode of the ninth series of the UK version of
Celebrity Wife Swap. His partner Michael Simpson went to live with former
Page 3 model Leah Newman, while Burns lived with Newman's partner, the footballer
Neil Ruddock. On 2 November 2006, Burns presented an
ITV program titled ''Pete Burns' Cosmetic Surgery Nightmares
. From 8 October 2007, to 5 December 2007, Pete's PA
aired on Living following Burns as he searched for a new personal assistant (PA). In 2008, Burns was also the subject of an episode for the show Psychic Therapy'' on the
Biography Channel where he was interviewed by
medium Gordon Smith. In January 2006, Burns appeared on
Channel 4's
Celebrity Big Brother 4, eventually reaching fifth on the show's final episode. During the program, he declared that one of his coats was made out of gorilla fur. This caused outrage among
animal rights activists as unlicensed gorilla fur is illegal in the United Kingdom. Police subsequently confiscated the coat and tests were performed on it that revealed that it was not gorilla but was made out of the fur of
colobus monkeys, which are an endangered species whose fur requires a licence, although experts believed that the fur had been imported before it became illegal to import colobus fur in 1975. Burns acted as a co-host on the 2013
E4 show
The Body Shocking Show and that same year he also co-hosted an episode of
Celebrity Wedding Planner. His final musical performance was on ''
Big Brother's Bit on the Side in February 2016 with his last public appearance being on Celebrity Botched Up Bodies'' in September 2016. == Private life ==