Kylie Minogue on her “superhero” boyfriend and stepping back in time
Kylie Minogue opens up on her boyfriend meeting her parents, her “transformative” Golden tour and her tentative plans to dust off her rarities-filled Anti-Tour again.
Music
Don't miss out on the headlines from Music. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Kylie Minogue can feel the “anxiety building” as she plots her upcoming schedule.
There’s a new singles compilation, Step Back In Time, released to mark her first official greatest hits tour at outdoor shows across the UK and Europe between June and August.
That will include her playing the Glastonbury Festival on June 30 in the legends slot — Minogue cancelled her 2005 booking at the iconic event after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
Those memories will ensure it is set to be an emotional night.
“Everyone’s trying to take the pressure off me — ‘Let’s get through these shows’,” Minogue says. “It’s always that, let’s just get through the next bit. But when I start to get nervous it’s because all roads leads to Glastonbury really.
“By the end of my 75 minutes, and that’s a tough set list as opposed to two hours for my usual shows, it’ll feel like it’s gone in a flash.
“So I’m trying to remind myself to enjoy the moment. It’s hard when you’re juggling everything else. I’ve got to ease myself into that. You know what, just stop and reflect and be grateful and proud.”
Also on Minogue’s agenda — a holiday. Since releasing the single Dancing in January 2018, Minogue has been promoting, then touring, her album Golden virtually non-stop, shoe-horning in her 50th birthday party last May, and also a new relationship.
A lifelong workaholic, at 51, Minogue is embracing the idea of vacations.
“I’m kind of into holidays these days,” she says, adding, “They’re much better when you’ve got someone to holiday with.”
Minogue has been dating Paul Solomons, creative director at UK GQ Magazine, for the past 18 months.
Solomons met Minogue’s parents during a stealth visit to Melbourne last Christmas.
Minogue said her parents were impressed on many levels — Solomons is Welsh; Minogue’s mother Carol was born in Wales.
“It all went very well,” she says. “He loved Australia, what he saw of it anyway.”
Solomons (favourite Kylie song — The One) has given Minogue a new perspective on the media after all these years.
“We’re kind of in the same field (of media) but on the other side, if you can call them sides. We can relate to the fact it might look glamorous, and sure some parts are, but it’s hard graft.
“He started working in the printing factory with magazines, so he knows that business literally from the floor up. Don’t let me gush about him. He is so supportive, it was a tough year last year workwise, it was good to have your other half be there. He flew in on a couple of occasions, like my super hero.”
Step Back In Time is the fourth official greatest hits Minogue has released — the album’s tag line is ‘Pop Precision since 1987’.
“I don’t think anyone can react the way I do when I hear some of the older songs,” she says. “Locomotion was the first demo I ever recorded, and it’s the exact same vocal still on there after all these years.
“That song brings up so many memories and emotions for me — I was just starting out, I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s always hard listening back. It’s kind of amazing as well. I’m proud of all the songs but I also see all the in-between bits.
“As a body of work, it’s impressive on one hand, and on the other I think ‘What haven’t I done yet? What’s next?’”
When the album’s title was released, Minogue’s diehard fans started making up their own potential tracklists, even down to fake cover art.
After some online excavation through publishing sites, fans discovered a song called A Rose Is a Rose, which Minogue had recorded recently. Some were hoping for more rarities or unreleased material on the new compilation as a point of difference.
Minogue says a new version of Step Back In Time, with more songs, is a possibility for a Christmas release.
She also hasn’t ruled out the chance of a Kylie Anthology down the track, raiding the countless unheard songs in her vaults.
“There is a chance of more to come. I’m as interested in those things as the fans are. A Rose Is a Rose was written and recorded, I’ve been in the studio doing bits and bobs. I don’t know how they find out this stuff. They should all do freelance work for Scotland Yard!”
In 2012, to mark her 25th anniversary in music, Minogue embarked on her Anti-Tour — with no bells, whistles or indeed hit singles. Rather she played fan favourites, album cuts and even songs that had only been heard through online leaks.
After digging through her catalogue for Step Back In Time, Minogue says an Anti-Tour 2 is being seriously discussed.
“We have to do Anti-Tour 2, it would be so much fun. Of course, it would be even more problematic than the last one, you just can’t play for four hours. Maybe that’s why Bruce Springsteen does play for four hours, you can’t cover everything else otherwise. But the concept of an Anti-Tour 2 is fleeting about in my mind, it’s definitely been coming up in conversations.”
When Minogue wrapped up her Golden tour in Australia earlier this year, she said the experience was ‘transformative’.
As well as the Nashville-tinge to the Golden album, the tour saw Minogue reinvent her stage show.
She found a new balance between joining in with her dancers and interacting with her live band — which gave her a glimpse into her future as a live performer.
“That’s really one of the reasons I was so happy with that show was that’s what I wanted to achieve. You never know if you can do that, how the audience will react,” she said.
For example I’ve worn some crazy outfits over the years, they’ve done their job and played their role, but that was one of the areas we made changes in. Let me feel like I can move and express myself the way I want to. It was very liberating. Thankfully the audience related to that, they got more of me in a way. The shared experience was just wonderful.”
Post-Glastonbury and British summer touring, Minogue sees the next year being “studio-based”.
“There’s all these songs I’ve worked on and ideas I’ve got that I want to explore”) but says a greatest hits tour for Australia in the future isn’t out of the question.
MORE: IT’S NO ACCIDENT KYLIE’S STILL A STAR AT 50
‘WOKE’ POP STARS SHOULD SHUT UP AND SING
HOW SOUND RELIEF CAME TOGETHER SO FAST
“The last tour was amazing, I loved it so much. I’d never done outdoor shows in Australia until that last tour and it really brings something so different, that festival spirit, it was brilliant. So yes, I’d love to bring a greatest hits tour home to Australia, maybe for some outdoor summer shows. That’d be incredible.”
Step Back in Time (Warner) out June 28.
Oasis tickets: Drastic lengths fans are going to
With queues stretching into the tens of thousands online, some fans have resorted to extraordinary measures to try and secure a ticket to the British rockers’ Aussie shows. Here’s what you need to know.
Singer’s cheeky crop top wows at Aussie gig
US pop star Olivia Rodrigo has delighted Aussie fans with this playful message scrawled across her crop top at her Melbourne show.