[laughs]

So we basically, you know, I mean, just to give my view on it, it was the, um, we'd been there as students.

Some of us had finished, um, our time at the college, and it just kinda felt like it had run its course a bit.

Um, we... the... we'd done the album then, you know, it, it just kind of proved difficult to, to keep our audience, um, you know, once the sort of people who we'd been, um, at college with, that they'd moved on, and people move out of the, the, the city and so on.

Uh, it was just kind of a bit difficult all round to kind of keep the momentum going, and one by one, people left.

Um, and then, yeah, it was difficult to kind of just keep it going.

And so, um, yeah, we, we struggled on for a bit.

Depends, really, doesn't it? [laughs]

Mm-hmm.

But the process to get there was you have to take transportation out of the port area, then you have to find a city bus, then you have to take the train, and then you have to take another bus that gets you to, to Stonehenge.

So it was probably three, four days before we got there that we got a thing in our room saying, "Hey, we're gonna go to Stonehenge if you wanna go." So we booked a Stonehenge tour, which was great.

It was kinda misty, rainy, and just kind of British, you know? You can't walk into Stonehenge.

It's fenced off, and the only time they let anybody actually walk in the grounds itself where you can walk in between the rocks is at the autumn and spring equinoxes, and they have a big druid celebration there where the sun comes up on both those days.

Nice.

And the first day, um, we originally had booked a, a trip to Blue Lagoon, which is, uh, the, uh, volcanic heated lagoon that you can visit.

And, uh, Royal Caribbean had actually canceled that.

It doesn't call on more

lightning strikes.

It's a rod.

I did see some metal in the tree as well.

What? Little pieces of metal sticking out the side of it.

I don't know if that was from one of us or someone else.

Are you telling me that someone has planted a lightning rod on our tree? It's like...

You've been working hard on this Majora's Mask.

I was

all welling up.

It was a surprise because I wasn't expecting that.

I think a lot of my audience, when they come to see me live, is LGBTQ+.

And you can always pick them out because they're dressed differently.

They hold up signs.

It makes me feel really warm and grateful that I am who I am because it connects me with a group of people that have struggles.

Yeah,

And so to then see the impact of the medicines as they went into the field was just the most unbelievable thing, because people just started living and got well.

It's incredible to think that when this disease started that we can stop AIDS.

And that we've come scientifically to the point where we can treat AIDS, we can stop it from happening, but we can't get to the, the countries that won't, you know, still won't take the drugs and still believe it's a, a homosexual disease, even though there are scores and millions of young women dying of it.

We can stop it now.

Um, and that's...

No other disease has had the amazing scientific success that AIDS has.

It's incredible.

That's, well, that's what I meant about community

We're twins.

[laughs] Yeah, I know, but I mean, when I was younger and I, listen, I didn't know I was gay, but I saw people like Little Richard, and I saw people like Liberace, um, and I, and I'd, I thought, "They're different.

There's something about them that I want to be like in a way." They were showmen.

They were just ...

There, there was something different and magical about them.

There was a lot of Little Richard and a lot of Liberace about me.

Um, and so- [laughs] I think those two especially really influenced me to how I performed, how I looked, and so they had an incredible impact on me.

It just, like, collides effortlessly.

... how, what, uh, how, what size role did that play, uh, do you think in both of your successes?

I never imagined myself as a solo artist.

Um, when I was in my f- group, Bluesology, I took the big risk of going up to Liberty Records saying, "I want to write songs.

I'm so fed up with playing in a band that doesn't wanna go anywhere.

And I can sing too." And so the guy, as you know, 'cause it's an old story, gave me the envelope with Bernie's lyrics in it.

And then when we wrote songs, I had to go out, and nothing was happening.

I had to go out and play them live, so I had to form a band.

Um, uh, that's gotta be a big impart- important part for both of your careers, yeah?