Morrissey: Before I met Peter I had a very strange impression of him -- I just went by stray gossip and hearsay and mythology and so I thought he was a half-crazed oddball. But deep down inside, as time began to pass, I began to really concentrate on this specimen and I though 'Oh no, it can't be true. I refuse to believe in all the curious things I've heard." And I really wanted to meet him because I saw a video which was wonderful...
Pete: Which one?
Morrissey: Um, the weird one with the women body builders...
Pete: That was crap...
Morrissey: ... and then we met and it was really odd because all these preconceptions I'd had about Pete were completely untrue. I approached him at Top Of The Pops...
Pete: In the toilet...
Morrissey: And I thought it would either be a black eye or it would be heavenly harmony...
Pete: He came up and spoke to me, which was a brave thing to do, so I decided to be polite to him and from then on we struck up a friendship that's been enduring. Before I met him, I thought he was a malicious little prat -- sometimes the things he says about other musicians are so strong. Morrissey has no mercy, you see, and that is where we differ... I'm a lot more charitable than people would expect but he's not, you see. I'd be very careful what I said about other people's records because I don't think it's fair...
Morrissey: Oh, I do. It's only because I really care about popular music that I feel this Samaritanesque duty to go out and nail those that need to be nailed.
Pete: I heard him on Roundtable and wrote him a letter saying he should hire three bodyguards and a tank -- he's really the one with the nasty tongue.
Morrissey: I think it's sad that Pete does so few interviews: as a symbolist he is quite a critical figure and he's certainly one of the most threatening, and I think people need to hear his spoken voice as well as his singing voice. I think it's a shame that now he's come to massive prominence, he's locked himself away in a broom cupboard.
Pete: But I have no wish to be acknowledged for anything I say. Before we started to become successful nobody paid me any attention -- I could have shot the Pope and I still wouldn't have got on the cover of a magazine. But then everybody wanted to talk to me and it went mental -- the return of the gender bender and all that crap. People set me up as something that I'm not. It's like with Morrissey -- he can inspire hatred. He makes the most outrageous statements and everyone prints them and he stands by them. Everybody wants him to say he's a clapped-out old drag queen, but he isn't and so he won't say it.
Morrissey: Peter is seen as a sour character and a bit of a trouble maker but that just isn't the case. He has an endless array of humour that has been gagged by the press.
Pete: Yeah, I'm really not such a bitter old sourpuss. But when I'm under pressure and working, my sense of humour isn't always there. When people try to pour custard on me... we did a TV show where they wanted to walk on halfway through the song and give me jam sandwiches and I won't have things like that. Morrissey can cut himself off a lot better than I can; he doesn't have second thoughts about knocking the phone off the hook and not going out the door for five days. I'm too nosey -- I want to know what everyone's saying. Old Mozza here is dead good at doing runners and dismissing the business for a week or so, don't you think?
Morrissey: Yes. Yes. It's just a safety net, really; I have to seal up the door and roll down the windows and hide.
Pete: But despite these differences, I feel a very strong affinity with him -- almost a brotherly thing. We've got a lot in common. We're both outsiders of the music business: we don't blend in on the showbiz party circuit; we don't stage huge publicity stunts; we don't throw Page 3 girls over our backs and get photographed at the Hippodrome...
Morrissey: Peter is so detached from the pantomime element of the whole industry and the whole party ethic and so are The Smiths. The only people we know in the industry are Dead Or Alive. The only people we see in the industry are Dead Or Alive...
Pete: And I'm a Smiths fan, embarrassingly enough -- I'm not supposed to admit that but it's always exciting when they're on Top Of The Pops...
Morrissey: It's only exciting because we're the group that shouldn't be there...
Pete: I followed them on a whole tour. I was like a crazed groupie. Morrissey would be in some clapped-out hotel somewhere and I'd show up -- because I could always find him. Do you want anything to eat or drink?
Morrissey: No, I'll have something quite soon.
Pete: Why, are you feeling queasy?
Morrissey: No... can I open these Coffee Creams?
Pete: Of course you can... I'm still getting to know Morrissey, really, but it's great having a friend like that because in this business you sometimes think you're going insane because you're not at the Wag Club with the famous starlets. Meeting him was great because we're both public figures and yet we're both at home eating toast at 10:30 on a Saturday night. We both know that we can phone each other up at any time of the day or night and we'll be at home. We keep in touch all the time, but I doubt if you'll see us braving night clubs together or anything. Whereas most pop stars who strike up a friendship, the first thing they'll do is whizz out to every public place together. But we went for a three hour walk in the park the other day, didn't we, and we froze to death and we walked through teams of rugby players... It does seem at the moment to be a friendship made in heaven, doesn't it? We had a screaming row the other night -- it was an absolute screamer. I blew my top.
Morrissey: It was horrible. It was terrible.
Pete: It's great to find a friend you can row with. I phone him up from Italy and everywhere, don't I? Even my own mother doesn't hear from me...
Morrissey: I think he means to phone his mother but he gets confused and dials my number instead. And he doesn't realise until we're half way through the conversation that I'm not actually his mother.
Pete: He's not my mother...
Morrissey: As long as I don't have to breast feed, I don't mind.
Pete: Oh, that was a sharp one, Joan Rivers!
Morrissey: He sends me flowers lots of times...
Pete: If I hear that he's down or depressed, I'll send him a bunch of flowers. Nothing brings him out like a bunch of flowers. Send him a bunch of daisies and he's anybody's. It's true, we have these little Interfiora men running between our flats, don't we, eh? He's anybody's for a lupin. When we were in Italy we had to have all these armed military police to guard us which was so stupid and it was freaking me out and so I phoned him up and he was making a piece of toast in Manchester. It really brought me back down to earth -- you know, 'What are you doing?', 'Oh, I've got a piece of toast on the stove and I'm watching Brookside'. It makes you realise it's still the same world. That's why our friendship is really important. I know it's more important to me than it is to him because he'd gladly go off and be a recluse.
Morrissey: No, that's not true. He sent me 26 roses when it was my birthday and I sent him 48 naked sailors.
Pete: See, I've met my match, tongue-wise. I always cheer you up, don't I?
Morrissey: Always. Always. Most of the people I have ever met have somebody who they can fall back into their arms -- Peter's relationship with Lynne is enviable. When I fall back, I hit concrete...
Pete: But I phone him up and cheer him up. If I was alone in this business -- alone in my bed at night -- I'd have flipped out. I certainly wouldn't meet anyone now -- there's no way I'd get involved with somebody now due to the fact that I'm successful. It's very easy when you're famous to get into somebody's underpants. Or knickers. It's served up on a plate with relish -- but you would not glean any relationship from it. If Morrissey was to get a relationship now, a lot of people would treat him with kid gloves and think 'Oh Morrissey! Morrissey!' and relate to him in awe. You'd have trouble finding a steady relationship now...
Morrissey: As opposed to before when it was really easy...
Pete: He's best without all that aggro because he'd immediately feel used by whoever he was with...
Morrissey: I want to be used. I want to be used.
Pete: See. That's how Morrissey sells records -- by making himself sound available and cheap. I don't think you'll find a relationship for a while -- until you've had four flop records. And I think his creativity would go down the toilet -- Morrissey's appeal is in his public face of loneliness. What else could he write about? 'Everything's wonderful. I'm so happy today.' There'd be no sense of drama in it.
Morrissey: Peter's appeal is that he's relentlessly exciting in every single way.
Pete: Isn't he lovely?
Morrissey: Specially the first time "You Spin Me Round" was on Top Of The Pops. That was just barbaric; it was demonic. "You Spin Me Round" is a hallmark in British music and it will never ever date.
Pete: You provocative little minx, you.
Morrissey: But to be perfectly serious about this whole thing, Pete has been a wonderful friend to me. He really does care and when I get depressed he'll pester me and he'll persecute in a wonderful way. Other people will just leave me alone but he won't do that. He'll stay there and take me out of the whole thing. And that is really priceless to me.
Pete: That's a lovely thing to say. I'm touched.

This article was originally published in the October 22, 1985 issue of Smash Hits.
Reprinted without permission for personal use only.