Singer Alison Moyet Photo: Naomi Davison
Alison Moyet has always had an uneasy relationship with fame, she says.
It's been 40 years since the British singer-songwriter began her solo career with the multi-platinum Alf album from which three huge world-wide hits 'Love Resurrection', 'Invisible' and 'All Cried Out' came.
Prior to going solo Moyet had already had major hits, 'Only You' 'Don't Go' and 'Situation', as the lead singer of Synth pop band Yazoo.
But despite her career soaring in the early 80s, she disliked the show biz scene, she told RNZ's Sunday Morning.
"I was a big Elvis Costello fan when I was younger, a massive fan, and I'd been in these little punk bands and blues bands, and I'd supported people like Dr Feelgood.
"And I remember one time I'd gone to a party at Dr Feelgood's house, and Elvis Costello was there."
She had just attended a show Costello played that went for two hours.
"And it was fantastic and impressive and after I saw him, I thought, okay I'm going to go and speak to him. I'm going to introduce myself to him.
"I went up, and I wanted to say, 'God you were so brilliant' And it just came out of my mouth as 'you dragged that out a bit, didn't you?'"
That's when she realised she wasn't cut out for small talk, she said.
"I just thought: Alison, you are not meant for this world. You are not meant to be around anyone you admire like that. Just stay away.
"I get anxious and just rubbish comes out of my mouth."
She has had her battles with agoraphobia, anxiety and ADHD, she said.
But has come to a place where she accepts they are part of what makes her.
"You understand as you get older, there's no one coming to rescue you.
"No one really cares that much about your story. And why should they? Because we all have our own issues to deal with.
"And you can watch so many of your days passing by, just passing by and losing them, and time running out and you changing nothing."
She got to the point of being irritated by her anxieties, she said.
"For me, it just got to point of saying, Oh, shut up, just deal with it. What's the worst that's going to happen? You're going to be uncomfortable, you're going to feel anxious, you're going to feel all those things. Well, deal with it. That's your reality, live with anxiety."
Alison Moyet says facing up to how she ticks - the good, the bad and the awkward - helped her to get on with living. Photo: MAIRO CINQUETTI
Understanding that she had to trust her own voice also helped, she said.
"If you always think that other people are getting everything right and you're getting everything wrong, you stop trusting your own voice.
"You don't have to fit in with everybody else.
"If you don't fit, you don't fit. You know - find your own people."
Last year Moyet received a degree in Fine Art Printmaking from the University of Brighton. She attended the uni incognito, although said keeping a low profile wasn't a stretch.
"I used my birth name, and I didn't go in there going, 'do you know who I am?
"So as far as I was concerned, I was just that old lady in the corner."
There was one moment when her pop past reared its head, she said.
"There was a girl in my class, and she was like, 19 or something, and it was during a lunch break, and I'm sitting at a table doing some work, and she and a couple of her girlfriends were just messing about dancing, and she started dancing, and she was singing one of my songs, one of the songs that I'd recorded.
"I was sitting there thinking, shall I, shan't I? Shall I, shan't I? In the end, I thought, oh, you know, it's funny, I'm going to, and so I said to her, 'Oh, that's my song.' And she carried on dancing and she goes, 'Oh, is it? My mum's is Love Shack.'"
The fame she had in her early years traumatised her, she said.
"I almost resented my hits, because when you become famous for doing a certain thing - and you are a traveller, which I am, someone that constantly wants to learn and try different things - you suddenly realise, Oh God, you know, it's like I didn't realise I was setting a flag and I was expected to stand underneath that all the time."
Although she acknowledges the success has brought with it creative freedom.
"I did earn a good amount of money, which then allowed me to say 'no'.
During a move to Brighton, on England's south coast, she threw out all of her gold discs and pop memorabilia, she said.
"I'm not one of these people that desperately needs to be remembered. And, my kids, they don't listen to my records. We don't talk about my work. That's going to be the least important thing to them when I'm dead.
"The more stuff you have, that's just luggage you've got to carry… it's just the weight of stuff, stuff, stuff. I just get fed up of stuff - I don't want stuff."
She has a devoted fanbase in New Zealand, Alf went eight times platinum here in the 1980s.
"It was a joy, like cor New Zealand! So I always had this love for it loving me."
Moyet is touring her album Key and will play Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in May 2025.
