Seeing Red

ARROGANT. Rude. Egotist. No concern for others. Judging by the identikit picture of Mick Hucknall, many of his talents lie in being obnoxious. Attracting nicknames such as Amply Fed and Simply Bed, even the physique of the Simply Red lead singer is considered a legitimate target for snide remarks.

It's hardly surprising then that he tells all who care to listen how much he detests the press. Print journalists always have the last word, he moans. They're judge and jury.

But with his personal wealth estimated at Pounds 10 million, and the five Simply Red albums having notched up sales of 26 million worldwide, the 35 year old Mancunian can safely say, a good press who needs it? Yet the misconceptions and prejudices he says certain British newspapers have perpetuated clearly still rankle. And even "silly books they write about me" have got in on the act, quoting disgruntled musicians who have served time in his band about how unpleasant he is to work with.

But the flame haired master of funky soil and reggae mixes, is the first job admit he has no time for pretentious pleasantries or false modesty. "I'd like to just say I am good at what I do and I can prove it. Journalists don't like me because I have got an opinion." As for his reputation for firing musicians from his band, there's a misconception, he says, that the impetus for this always comes from him. Often it's other members of the band approaching him and saying they can't work with one particular player, he explains.

Manipulative or misunderstood, it's irrelevant to the 60,000 plus fans who filled Europe's biggest indoor venue - the Nynex arena in Manchester - over three consecutive nights this week. He had them dancing in the tiers with the band's stupendous Life show.

Backstage, on Monday afternoon, his prompt arrival for an interview with The Irish Times doesn't suggest a petulant star. Dressed in a Nike tracksuit of navy trousers and red, white and blue top, he strolls into the hospitality room with a small, delicate white china cup of espresso in his hand.

The hallmark red tresses which frame his round face are tramelled in neat dreadlocks, considerably curtailed from the ostentatious lengths they once were. With hair that colour, it's no surprise to hear that this loyal Manchester United fan would be qualified to play soccer for Ireland.

"My mother's family is Irish, and also my grandmother on my father's side I found out last year," he explains, with a flash of the ruby embedded in a front tooth. But before enterprising genealogists rush for the family trees in advance of the band's visit to Dublin next month, it must be said that he has no intention of seeking out his family roots. In fact, he doesn't even have any interest in looking up his own mother. As far as he is concerned, when Maureen Hucknall walked out of the family home in Denton, east Manchester, leaving her three year old son, she made a choice for life. He certainly wasn't impressed with a phone call out of the blue more than 20 years later, when he was number two in the charts, nor with a subsequent spread in the Sun. But isn't he maybe being a bit hard on her?

I THINK it's very easy for people outside to make those kind of irresponsible judgments when they don't know the reality. I had a father who looked after me for 21 years, who was there for me every single day - a cooked breakfast, a cooked dinner every day. And I'm supposed to say to him, 'oh forget about all that. I'm just going to start a complete reunion with my mother who I've never met since I was three; I'm sure you're going to be absolutely fine about that'? Of course he was just devastated when she tried to get in touch with me. I've nothing against my mother, and my father never said bad things about her, just said she left because she wanted to leave. If I was plumber Mick living in Dent on, do you think she would be calling me up?

"I didn't miss her when I was a kid," he stresses, explaining, how, from the age of three to 11, he was cared for by a neighbour, Aunt Nellie, and her four daughters, while his father, Reg, was out working in a barber's shop. "I had a really happy childhood."

Yet undoubtedly the unconventional nature of his upbringing has coloured his adult attitude to life. While ridiculing the notion of a New Man tag, he has never had any preconceptions of women as old style wives. "I never had a woman to cook and clean for me when I was a kid."

But confusion among his peers in the struggle between the sexes to understand their modern roles has provided the theme for one track on Life - Never Never Love: "So now we've got our independence, what are we gonna do with it?" he sings.

"I have a theory that a lot of men when they search for their wives, they look for mummy replacements," he says. "I don't think that a lot of younger women these days are prepared to fill that role and I think you're going to see a temporary rise in homosexuality in both sexes - you're already seeing it actually - where both men and women are turning to the same sex for help, basically, for companionship, because they can't relate."

Glibly labelled as a "man who loves women", his undoubted sex appeal has always mystified other men. His close friend and manager since 1980, Elliot Rashman is quoted as saying: "Even when he was an ugly runt at art school, girls always gravitated to him."

UNDOUBTEDLY spoiled for choice, Hucknall says when he's not working he has had relationships that have lasted up to a year or two. Is that long? "One year, two year relationship without getting married? That's pretty good actually," and he smiles through his intense blue eyes. "I've had great relationships and the only reason they've ended is because of my work it's like, here he goes, one more time around the world. See you in a year and a half."

But this is all going to change, he says. Planning to keep the Lee tour on the road until the middle of next year, "then I'm probably not going to do any more shows until, like 2001, 2002. And if I do any then, they will be small theatres and they will be shows that will base themselves totally on musical performance rather than show, show, show."

Personal reasons, namely the biological clock, play no small part in this decision. Describing fatherhood, as still "a distant aspiration", one of the world's most eligible bachelors adds: "I'm definitely getting those hormonal things". And if he's going to be a parent, he wants to do it properly "like my dad did".

"I realise when I come to have a family I'm going to sacrifice a part of my life, which will probably include a major part of my work. And I am prepared to do that. I just realise how much the real time you spend with your kids when they're younger benefits them when they're older. Also, like what is the point in having a kid if you're not going to be there when it grows up? That's the best time surely, to watch them grow, before they walk away from you."

If his desire for hands on parenting is another legacy of his childhood, so too is his persistent sense of being an outsider and a loner. The combination of being the only redhead in class at Audenshaw grammar school and an only child, necessitated a defence of independence. Opting to study fine art in Manchester Poly and embracing the punk movement expressed that sense of being a teenager apart from his mates.

It must have seemed rather presumptuous for the 21 year old lead singer of a struggling punk band, the Frantic Elevators, to say: "If I can sell records and remain reclusive, then that's my ideal". One band and 14 years later, Mick Hucknall has certainly achieved the former; but the latter, surely not?

"I think I am very reclusive actually. I spend a lot of time on my own," he says of life on the move between his bases in Manchester, Milan, Paris and London. And that's when he's not on tour. "I very much enjoy solitude."

It's certainly the flip side of what he'll be doing in a few hours' time when he goes out on stage to the adulation of thousands of ecstatic fans. Stretching out astonishingly long and bony fingers, he scribbles a diagram of the set. Its design reflects his belief that the performance is "not about me walking on the stage, saying 'look at me, I'm sexy and gorgeous and admire me'. It's about going out there and saying, 'hey you, you've just paid for your ticket and I'm going to cheer you up'." With an ingenious, treble clef shaped stage and That Voice, he achieves the impossible: an intimate show for the masses.

From the hypnotic ballad of Holding Back The Years, to the raunchy The Right Thing and the foot stomping Money's Too Tight To Mention, he displays an astonishing vocal range, soaring from throaty growls to choirboy heights.

Typical of the man, there is no gushing of: "It's great to be home". The only concession to the place that's in it is his announcement that Manchester United are 1-0 up at half time against West Ham. (And Eric Cantona, "a personal friend", scored.) Otherwise he treats the show as if it was anywhere else in the world. But it wasn't always like that.

"Sometimes the home town thing can kind of hang you round the neck. I don't know if Bono feels that way when he is in Dublin, but for many, many years I have always felt like I had to prove myself here. The reality is they don't want that, they just want a show."

And it's some show. There isn't a moment's sag in nearly two hours of non stop exuberance. Swaggering down the walkways in black, patent leather boots and a black, three piece suit with an open necked white shirt, he discards the jacket and then the waistcoat as he turns the heat up to a frenzied climax.

Despite always coming off the stage on a great high, live performance isn't the part of the job that gives the consummate professional bandleader the greatest kick.

"It's knowing that Mr and Mrs Bloggs yesterday went into the record shop and bought a copy of the Life album and like it - that's my award. I don't really care for anything else. To get awards from your contemporaries is nice, like when I got the Ivor Novello award in 1991 for songwriter of the year - that meant a lot to me." But he dismisses the British Phonographic Industry, responsible for the Brit awards, as "just a bunch of carpet salesmen".

He says the record companies are totally out of touch with the technological developments which will make supply of music down the phone line to home computers the norm within five to 10 years. "They don't even know that the CD is already dead in the water."

ASKED what, musically, he still wants to achieve, Hucknall pauses: "I see myself always trying to achieve musical excellence. That's what I was going for from my very first album (Picture Book, 1985). I'd like to leave behind seven or eight really good albums that can stand the test of time. None of the albums are in the deletion racks; they're still at top price and they're still selling. That's how bland it is," he adds with a sarcastic jibe at dismissive music critics. As far as he's concerned, the one in three British homes which has a Simply Red album can't be wrong. "If I'm bland, then the nation's bland I'm afraid," adds the staunch Labour supporter.

Although he has written all the work both on Life and its predecessor, Stars (1991), he doesn't rule out recording cover tracks again. His writing is very much an inspirational process.

"I think of them as slightly cosmic transcendental messages," he laughs. "I write my singing into a machine like this," and he points to the micro cassette recorder on the table. "You do sometimes think, where the hell did that come from?"

All his writing is done in the quiet time between tours, during which he can also indulge in his love of entertaining friends, cooking, travel and sport. A regular visitor to Old Trafford he confesses, however, that he prefers to watch the games on television. "I like the analysis, I like the build up and, more importantly, I like the replays.

Showing no signs of on the road excesses, his clear complexion glows with good health. The boyish red Pippin cheeks seem to have matured into leaner, tanned versions - "for today" he says, explaining that water retention can rapidly alter his appearance. Jogging is a regular part of his regime. What, without being pestered?

"The secret is to keep moving," he grins as he stands up to terminate with a handshake what was a lengthy, courteous interview. The soundcheck for tonight is long overdue.

Well, what about those accusations of an inconsiderate, loud mouthed lout? On today's evidence certainly, case dismissed.