Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?! – Wham!’s Andrew Ridgeley

In 2022, which Scottish singer-songwriter recreated Wham!’s 1983 ‘Club Tropicana’ video?

“That’s Lewis Capaldi.”

CORRECT. He paid homage in the video to ‘Forget Me’.

“It was an amazing frame-by-frame reimagining. It was extraordinary. I remember seeing it and thinking, they’ve got absolutely everything right.”

During the shoot for ‘Club Tropicana’ in Ibiza, your late Wham! bandmate George Michael came out to you as gay. In your 2020 memoir, ‘Wham! George and Me’, you write that while Michael (who was outed in 1998) thought that revealing his sexually would have damaged the band commercially, you didn’t think at the time it would have much impact…

“Part of me couldn’t see any reason why he couldn’t come out, because everyone knew that Boy George was gay. I suppose Boy George’s image was more asexual than homosexual, but nevertheless, there was a part of me that felt it wouldn’t impact Wham! hugely if George did make his sexuality public. He felt it would, which is one of the reasons why he didn’t. He felt it would negatively affect Wham!’s career path. So we’ll never know. But it was absolutely of no consequence to our relationship. That was neither here nor there.”

In 2014, which Conservative politician performed a snippet of Wham!’s 1982 debut single ‘Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)’ during a speech to schoolchildren?

“That was Michael Gove. [Laughs]”

CORRECT. After revealing he was a fan of “chap-hop”, the current Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Community intoned some of the lyrics of ‘Wham Rap!’ – ironically about joblessness under a Conservative government – to cringes from the kids.

“Yeah, I saw that. Good God! Regardless of his political position, in a list of things a politician shouldn’t do, rap has got to be in the top three!”

‘Wham Rap!’ saw the group applauded for your social commentary (it was even NME single of the week), before the relationship with the music inkies strained around the release of ‘Club Tropicana’…

“Throughout our career as Wham!, my mum kept scrapbooks of all our press cuttings and it’s funny because we were heralded as the voice of youthful social conscience, and ‘Wham Rap!’ was really a wry comment on our position at the time. Neither of us had full-time jobs. Although George had a couple of part-time jobs, I had signed on [to the dole], so it was a tongue-in-cheek reflection of our lives. The trilogy of ‘Wham Rap!’, ‘Young Guns (Go for It)’ and ‘Bad Boys’ painted us into a corner, so when we released ‘Club Trop’, it was a merciful release! Because our circumstances had changed. We were no longer out-of-work youngsters trying to pull together a few quid to record on a four-track, we were successful international artists so the social commentary element of the song-writing was behind us, and we were thrilled we could inject a bit of glamour into Wham!.”

Which girlband covered the Wham!/George Michael single ‘Careless Whisper’ in 2001?

“Ooh, now they’re getting tricky! I have no idea. Can I have a clue?”

Sure! They’re associated with the ‘80s…

“It wasn’t Bananarama was it?”

CORRECT.

“[Laughs] I should know that because I was living with Keren [Woodward, Bananarama member] at that time!* I must have known that, but I don’t recall her ever playing it to me though.”

Apparently Wham! and Bananrama used to have heated games nights together where George Michael would get upset if he lost at charades…

“He was very competitive, especially at quizzes and Beat the Intro, and he needed to win, but there are very few people better at Beat the Intro than Keren, so he had to play second fiddle on those evenings.”

You co-wrote ‘Careless Whisper’ as schoolkids and were rightly convinced it was a surefire Number One – despite George’s sisters dubbing it ‘Tuneless Whisper’ to rib him…

“[Laughs] Yeah, they did! But Yog [Ridgeley’s nickname for Michael] knew that song was our gem. At the time, we’d only written and recorded parts of three songs – ‘Wham Rap!’, a verse and chorus of ‘Careless Whisper’ and two-thirds of ‘Club Trop’, but we both knew ‘Careless Whisper’ was a song apart, which is why it became a George Michael solo single. It didn’t naturally fit the parameters we had for Wham!, which was about our friendship and experience of life together. ‘Careless Whisper’ ended up on our second album ‘Make It Big’. It was a track obviously which launched him as a solo artist but we felt it was our song as well, which is why it was on a Wham! album. It found two homes.”

Countless artists including Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have all covered Wham!. Any favourite versions?

“I really like the Gwen Stefani version of ‘Last Christmas’ and the Seether version of ‘Careless Whisper’”

*Ridgley was in a 17 year relationship with Woodward from 1990 to 2017.

Which Oscar-winning actor played you in a Saturday Night Live sketch in 1996?

“Holy smoke! I They would have probably tried to get someone who looked like me. River Phoenix? Dunno!”

WRONG. It was Tom Hanks.

“Well if I had to pick, Tom would be as good as anyone! [Laughs] I didn’t know that. Blast!”

What is the annual game that begins on December 1st (and lasts until December 24) where the object is to go as long as you can without hearing Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’?

“Yeah, well good luck with that! Whamageddon.”

CORRECT.

“A short-lived game for some! [Laughs] ‘Last Christmas’ is an exceptional seasonal record. Funnily enough, I haven’t got sick of hearing it as yet!”

‘Last Christmas’’s position as the biggest-selling single in UK chart history not to reach Number One (it was beaten by Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ – which also featured George Michael) used to piss George off. Would he have been happy that it finally topped the charts in 2020?

“Oh yeah! Although we were both fully behind the Band Aid purpose and donated our royalties from ‘Last Christmas’ that year to charity, it did needle that it had kept us from the top spot because we felt right from the word go when George first composed the bones of it on a rainy Sunday in October ’84 that it was a nailed-on Number One. And it was – it just took 37 years!”

The ‘Last Christmas’ video shoot in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, sounds like one long bender and began with one of your party getting hammered and projectile-vomiting into the filter of the hotel pool…

“The whole thing was pretty raucous from start to finish – and bloody good fun! It culminated in a naked steeplechase over hotel balconies with George and I wearing only moonboots! The race was abandoned because we stopped outside our director’s room who was in flagrante delicto with his wife, so that distracted us! [Laughs] So we mooned them, and they were horrified – as well they might be!”

Speaking of Christmas, you and George used to go carolling with a blow-up sex-doll. What was the reaction from residents opening their doors?

“[Laughs] Varied! Some people had no idea at all who was carolling outside their front-door and others obviously knew immediately, but those carolling forays were always fairly well-lubricated . Like any other 20/21 year-olds, we were having the times of our life. Our friendship was founded on juvenile humour. We didn’t take ourselves seriously. We took the songwriting and making the records seriously, but that’s when it stopped!”

At Wham!’s Hollywood Park gig in 1985, which rock icon was furious after being refused entry?

“Stevie Nicks.”

CORRECT.

“Our tour manager said: ‘You’ve got to get down here because Stevie Nicks has been refused entry by the security’. The security were young kids who didn’t know who she was, and she was bloody furious – rightly so! I wasn’t able to calm her down completely because it wasn’t long before we were due onstage, so I could only spend a few minutes trying to placate her ire. But it’s great to meet one’s idols – although not when they’re in such a bad mood. She was spitting feathers and it wasn’t what I needed before going onstage [Laughs].”

Wham! only ever won one NME Award. What was it for?

“Was it Worst Band?”

WRONG. Wham! scooped the ‘Best Dancefloor Favourite’ accolade in 1982 for ‘Young Guns (Go for It)’.

“Well, well, well! It’s a good track – that’s for sure! Whilst the press praise had been fairy effusive initially, we were then ex-communicated as pop fluff in 1984 from ‘Club Tropicana’ to ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ [Laughs], until our second album ‘Make It Big’ when we were allowed back in the fold. It was always a source of bemusement that the press wasn’t prepared to concede that actually our tracks were good, even though they didn’t remain in the pigeonhole [the press] would have liked us to remain in. It seemed myopic and rankled George a wee bit.”

Wham!’s backing dancers/singers were Pepsi & Shirlie. In his autobiography, which fictional sitcom character claims that Pepsi or Shirlie was responsible for triggering his Toblerone addiction?

“I’m going to guess Alan Partridge? I’m struggling to see how it connects to Pepsi & Shirlie, but he’s always looked like a Toblerone man to me! [Laughs]”

CORRECT. In his 2011 memoir ‘I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan’, ‘Pepsi (or Shirley) [sic] from Pepsi and Shirley’ introduced him to his first evil pyramid of chocolate. What were those early days of you and George making up dance routines with your then-girlfriend [and future mother of presenter Roman Kemp] Shirlie Holliman like?

“Those routines were a development of the ones we used to do when me, Shirlie and Yog went out clubbing together. We directly took those dance moves and developed them, because when we were promoting our songs, we hadn’t had a hit and the record company wasn’t going to pay for us to put a band together and tour. PAs were how we presented ourselves to audiences, and we set ourselves apart with our dance routines. It was all very amateur hour and teenage. I remember rehearsing for one PA in the house of the kids who George was babysitting that evening!”

What track does George Michael perform backing vocals on your 1990 solo album ‘Son of Albert’?

“Red Dress.”

CORRECT.

“Yes, we co-wrote the bridge – he helped me out with the melody on that.”

You performed with George Michael for the last time at the 1991 Rock in Rio festival, joining him for ‘I’m Your Man’, ‘Freedom! ’90’ and ‘Careless Whisper’. Can you name any of the other four headliners at the nine-day event?

“No. [Laughs] I only went to the evening when Yog performed.”

WRONG. You could have had: Prince, New Kids on the Block, INXS, Guns N’ Roses, or A-ha.

Did you know at the time that would be the last time you’d perform with George or did you always feel you’d eventually get together once more for a valedictory run-through of the hits?

“No. Us performing together as Wham! was something we were never going to do. We were never going to do an official reunion. We felt – and we were absolutely right – that Wham! was the expression of our youthful friendship and a point in time. From the start, we knew that Wham! had a limited lifespan because one day we’d outgrow it, and we could never conceive of Wham! in middle-age. Wham! couldn’t grow old. Therefore, it seemed entirely inconceivable that we as middle-aged chaps could ever perform as Wham!, so we always knew we wouldn’t perform officially as Wham! together again. Although I went onstage with George several times throughout his solo career, we would never have reformed Wham!”

The verdict: 7/10

“That’s middling. Not the best showing, but not the worst!”

‘Wham! The Singles: Echoes From The Edge Of Heaven’ will be released as a deluxe vinyl singles 7” box set on July 7. The documentary ‘Wham!’ is out now in cinemas and available from July 5 on Netflix

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