Musicians - Neil Tennant

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	Musicians - Neil Tennant

Neil Francis Tennant (born July 10, 1954 in North Shields, Northumberland, United Kingdom) is a British musician, who, with his colleague Chris Lowe, makes up the successful pop duo, the Pet Shop Boys.

Childhood

As a child, Neil attended St. Cuthbert's, a Catholic school in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. The songs "This must be the place I waited years to leave" and "It's A Sin" refer to his early life in Catholic school and the strict Catholic upbringing there. "It's A Sin" caused controversy with its explicit criticism of catholic education.

Whilst at school, Neil played guitar and cello. At the age of 16, he played in a group called Dust. Their most popular song was a called "Can you hear the dawn break?" and they were heavily influenced by The Incredible String Band.

Later life

In 1975, after completing a degree in history at North London Polytechnic, Neil worked for a brief time as an editor for the UK branch of Marvel Comics. He was tasked with anglicizing the dialogue of Marvel's catalogue to suit English readers, and also indicated where over-risque women needed to be redrawn more decently for the British editions. In 1977, he moved to Macdonald Educational Publishing and, later, ITV Books. In 1982, he joined the British teen pop magazine Smash Hits, where he rose to Assistant Editor.

At Smash Hits, an opportunity arose to go over to New York and interview The Police. Whilst there, Tennant arranged to meet Bobby Orlando, a producer who both he and Lowe admired. Tennant mentioned that he was writing songs in his spare time and Orlando agreed to record some tracks with him and Lowe at a later date. Orlando later produced Pet Shop Boys' first single West End girls.

Personal life

Although Tennant avoided the issue of homosexuality in the 1980s, preferring his lyrics to be androgynous, he publicly "came out" shortly after the release of 1993's Very in Attitude, a UK gay lifestyle magazine.

Current career and future

Tennant and Lowe are still going strong as Pet Shop Boys. Although they have not had a Number One since 1988, their singles regularly appear in the Top 20 in the UK chart. Neil has a hi-tech, state of the art recording studio in his home in Durham and many songs from 2002's Release album were recorded there.

In 2005, Neil featured on a track called "Tranquilizer" by DJ Tom Stephan (a.k.a. Superchumbo). Also pencilled for a release in Spring 2006 is a song entitled "Throw", taken from DJ Dan Fresh's new album and in May 2006 the release of their new full-length album, Fundamental, which is already complete. The first single was to be a song called "Minimal", but recently news has emerged that "I'm With Stupid" is going to be the first single off the album.

Trivia

Doctor Who star David Tennant chose his acting surname from Neil Tennant. This came after reading an interview with Tennant in Smash Hits shortly after learning that he would have to change his professional name in order to join the actors' union, Equity, as there was already a registered member with his real name, David McDonald.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Neil Tennant ]

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