Neil Tennant

Neil Tennant (2006 in Boston )

Neil Tennant (2007)

Neil Francis Tennant (born July 10, 1954 in North Shields , Northumberland ) is a British musician, singer, producer and journalist. Together with Chris Lowe , he founded the band West End in London in 1981 , which was soon to be renamed Pet Shop Boys .

Early life

Neil Tennant was born to William W. Tennant (1923-2009), a sales representative, and Sheila M. Tennant (1923-2008) into a middle-class Catholic family. He grew up in the suburbs of Newcastle upon Tyne and, as a child, attended St. Cuthbert's, a traditional Roman Catholic school in Newcastle, and described this time in retrospect as difficult. As a student he was mainly interested in drawings and poetry, but also played in a folk music group called Dust. The autobiographical song This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave (1990) refers to his early life in school. The international hit It's A Sin (1987) also explicitly criticized the Roman Catholic education system.

Career

In 1975 Tennant graduated from North London Polytechnic in London with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. Tennant then worked for a brief period as an editor for the British branch of Marvel Comics , translating the comics' dialogue from American English into British English . He was also the editor of the Dairy Book Of Home Management, which appeared in 1980 and was distributed to all households by a well-known British milk supplier. From 1982 until his musical breakthrough, he worked as a journalist for the music and teenage magazine Smash Hits , where he interviewed pop stars and wrote music reviews.

In 1981 he had met Chris Lowe in an electrical goods store. The two musicians together formed the Pet Shop Boys and were successful worldwide in the mid-1980s. In addition to the Pet Shop Boys, he worked several times as a guest singer with the supergroup Electronic , was heard as a background singer on the hit No Regrets by Robbie Williams in 1998 and sang in 2008 with Elton John on the Christmas carol Joseph, Better You than Me by The Killers . He also worked as a co-producer for other artists, such as Rufus Wainwright's 2007 album Release the Stars . In 2018 Neil Tennant published his own volume of poetry under the name One Hundred Lyrics And A Poem - 1979-2016 , which also includes many of the lyrics he wrote for the Pet Shop Boys.

Private

Neil Tennant, who is otherwise cautious about his private life, first confessed to his homosexuality in an interview in 1994 . He lives alternately in London , Berlin and County Durham .

Web links

Wikiquote: Neil Tennant  - Quotes

• Official Pet Shop Boys Page
• Neil Tennant in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Evening Chronicle: Dream of fame helped star survive bullying. April 9, 2006, accessed April 6, 2020 . 
2. ↑ AT 17 YOU STILL HAVE DREAMS: “David Bowie was the salvation” - DER SPIEGEL 3/2002. Retrieved April 6, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Pop: main enemy rock'n'roll - DER SPIEGEL 37/1996. Retrieved April 6, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Martin Hossbach: Pet Shop Boys in an interview about Elysium. In: SPEX. October 23, 2012, accessed April 6, 2020 (German). 
5. ↑ Alexis Petridis: Farewell to Smash Hits . In: The Guardian . February 3, 2006, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed April 6, 2020]).
6. ↑ Pet Shop Boys: Neil Tennant publishes book of poetry. Retrieved December 18, 2018 . 
7. ↑ Coming Out - Neil Tennant Shamelessly Honest - Pet Shop Boys ONLINE. Retrieved April 6, 2020 (American English).