New compilation collects early career of Wirral pop star Pete Burns

Let The Drag My Soul Away is a three CD collection exploring the pre-fame career of Wirral-born Pete Burns and his band Dead Or Alive who would go on to score a worldwide number one with You Spin Me Round (Like A Record). 

Peter Jozzeppi Burns was born on August 5 1959 in Port Sunlight and grew up in a house on Bath Street. 

His mother, Evelina Maria Bettina Quittner von Hudec, was German but moved to Vienna to escape the Nazis where she met English soldier from Liverpool named Francis Burns. Evelina was 46 years old when she gave birth to Burns. He later wrote of his childhood in his autobiography in which he described his mother's alcoholism and suicide attempts but maintained that she was "absolutely the best mother in the world".

Pete Burns (Image: PA)

Burns spoke German until he was five and he described school being "almost non-existent", and his mother frequently kept him away so he could spend the day with her. He was thrown out of school at 13 after being summoned to the headmaster's office because he had arrived at school with "no eyebrows, red hair, and one gigantic earring."

By 1978, Burns was working in Probe Records on Liverpool's Mathew Street where he cut a distinctive, formidable and intimidating figure at the cash register. “When he was working in Probe we would be scared to go in there and be served by him,” says guitarist Wayne Hussey, who had moved to Liverpool earlier that year. “He was like, ‘What are you buying this crap for?’. He was very rude."

Having been ‘discovered’ working in the shop Burns found himself fronting his own band, Nightmares In Wax, who mutated into the more familiar Dead Or Alive, eventually bringing him into the UK pop mainstream, and a star was born.

In later years, Burns was best known for his ever-changing, often androgynous appearance, which he freely admitted was greatly modified by cosmetic surgery. He had extensive polyacrylamide injections into his lips, cheek implants, several rhinoplasties and many tattoos.

Pete Burns (Image: PA)

Burns died in London following a sudden cardiac arrest on October 23 2016, at the age of 57. People who paid tribute to him after his death included Boy George, who described Burns as "one of our great true eccentrics" and would pay the costs for his funeral, Marc Almond, who described Burns as a "one off creation, a fabulous, fantastic, brilliant creature..." and former MP George Galloway, who had appeared with him on Celebrity Big Brother and said Burns was "a cross between Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker... you don't get more brilliant than that".

Dead Or Alive - Let Them Drag My Soul Away – Singles, Demos and Live Recordings 1979-1982 is released by Cherry Red on July 21 2023.