They've had a hit single. They're never off the radio. They've even got Duran Duran's old producer. And yet one of them still insists on wearing a tartan apron and a false moustache. We sent Mark Steels to have a quiet word with him.
"Well, my biggest influence was, without doubt, Jimmy Osmond," says John Kingsley-Hall. "Especially that
song of his which went 'Milly Molly Mandy, sweet as sugar candy'. Absolutely brilliant!"
John Kingsley-Hall is the keyboard player and resident "loon" of chart newcomers Kissing The Pink. No glamour togs and pop niceness
for our John. Sitting in the dressing room prior to their first-ever TOTP appearance, he is putting the finishing touches to
quite easily the daftest get-up this side of Twisted Sister — creased Oxfam jacket, green tartan apron-skirt over rolled-up trews,
non-matching socks and Doc Martens. The nightmare vision is completed by a few tubes of icky stuff on the spiky locks and a drawn-on
moustache.
Why does he do it?
"I dunno", comes the curt reply. Having been forced to wait around for nearly four hours to get to talk to him I'm starting to
think that maybe John doesn't take the media's response to the group's first hit single — "The Last Film" — at all seriously.
George Stewart, the group's percussionist, offers that it's to "cover up the fact that John has just
got an incredibly huge bum" and everyone falls about laughing. Eventually vocalist Nick Whitecross and
saxophonist Jo Wells inject a much-needed shot of sanity into the proceedings.
"We've got no pretensions at all about what we do" claims Nick, "and I suppose the way John looks today is a reaction against being
squeezed into a particular image. I find it really annoying that the public are continually being served the same things — at the
moment everyone's got to look pretty and glamorous and we just don't want to get caught in the trap of being regarded as another
trendy pop group."
Visual aspects aside, however, "The Last Film" makes a poignant anti-war statement.
"I'm not sure whether pop is the right medium for heavy statements," Nick admits. "Most of what we do is just a reflection of what
we see all around us. 'The Last Film is just about a soldier sat in a tent watching one of those 40s or '50s Hollywood war films
just before he's about to go out and fight for real. It's not controversial... war is horrible and unglamorous."
Kissing The Pink's first album, "Naked", is due to be released soon and this will be supported by a tour about which Jo Wells is very
excited.
"Touring really gives us our greatest pleasure," she enthuses. "Playing live and getting that immediate feedback from an audience is
what
makes everything worthwhile. I mean a couple of weeks ago we did a show at the Camden Palace and we were forced to mime — it was truly
horrible, bad for us and consequently bad for the audience."
"Obviously the single's success is going to help us," Nick chips in, "but I hope people don't judge what we are about on the basis of
just one record. I think when people hear 'Naked' they will be pleasantly surprised to hear an album with so much variety on it...
anyone expecting to hear 12 re-hashes of 'The Last Film' are going to be disappointed. At the same time I hope that they will be able
to react emotionally to some of the other tracks in the same way they might to 'The Last Film'. You can touch people through songs -
even pop songs - but it's far more important to get them to realise just why they are feeling what they are feeling, to have a
sympathy with someone else's predicament."
Whether Kissing The Pink — whose extraordinary name, incidentally, is a snooker term — manage to bludgeon their way into the
hearts of the nation without all the seemingly necessary trappings of the pop world remains to be seen. Their album is produced by
Duran Duran maestro, Colin Thurston, and their intentions and beliefs are quite refreshing.
Nevertheless, I have a nagging feeling that John's appalling dress sense and self-conscious buffoonery might not work against those
goals they are trying to achieve. Nick might well say "it's important that in being serious about what we're doing we don't lose our
sense of humour" but are green tartan skirts really that funny?
"Listen", quips John, "we're just a good pop group and I just want to be a pop star. And who was the greatest pop star of all time?
Gary Glitter! He wasn't stylish either..."