Alison Moyet was a “complete a*******” when she first found fame.
Alison Moyet felt awkward when she found fame
The ‘All Cried Out’ hitmaker was just 20 years old when she was propelled into the spotlight as a member of Yazoo alongside former Depeche Mode musician Vince Clarke and she always felt like a “freak” alongside other stars so never felt like she fitted in.
Asked how she handled sudden fame, she told Sunday Times Culture magazine: “There are no two ways about it: I could be a complete a*******.
“I would meet the London crowd, the people who knew how to do small talk and be pop stars, I would say the wrong thing and I could see them thinking: freak.
“That feeling of ‘other’ never went away and my assumption was that nobody wanted to be in my company. I was intruding.”
The 62-year-old star struggled with the attention she received after finding fame.
She recalled: “I left school at 16 having not distinguished myself in any way.
“There was very little expectation for me to be anything more than factory fodder, and as a gender non-conforming rough girl in the 1970s who didn’t have a natural place in society, there was no chance of getting shop work either.
“So when fame happened it was a double whammy: having been observed all my life, it came as a total shock to be observed in a way I had no control over whatsoever.”
Yazoo split after just 18 months and two albums and Alison sunk into a “deep depression”.
Reflecting on how they had faced a million pound lawsuit from a US group also called Yazoo, she said: “So we changed the name to Yaz, and some band called Yaz also tried to sue us. They were just trying it on, but by now I was in a deep depression.
“I’m famous, I’m living in a house in Basildon, I’m agoraphobic, music had been my escape from being this ‘other’ person since I was a child and now I couldn’t even listen to it because it hurt so much.”
But the ‘Whispering Your Name’ singer went on to find solo success thanks to her debut LP ‘Alf’, though she has mixed emotions about it.
She said: “Having a hit solo album with ‘Alf’ was a blessing and a curse, because now I was a mainstream singer and that meant dealing with the strange competitiveness women are put into. There are times when you are meant to exist and times when you are meant to go away.”
