Dominic Masters is the 26-year-old singer with The Others. A punky guitar band from London, they became famous last year for staging so-called “guerrilla gigs” at places like in a tube train, in the lobby of Radio 1 and on the zebra crosswalk on Abbey Road. Dominic is a self-styled working class hero and, like his friend Pete Doherty of The Libertines, an avowed user of crack.

Wolfgang and I met Dominic at the Bethnal Green flat he shares with two flatmates and his boyfriend Johan. Despite the fact that Dominic had just come off a 30-date tour and had been out partying every night, he’d agreed to cook us dinner. Dominic opened the door for us half naked with his face covered in shaving cream. He ushered us down a dark hallway to his room, where a scene of epic mess awaited us. Plastic bags, clothes and random detritus covered every surface.

Alex: Dominic, there’s a chili pepper down here by your bed.
Dominic: Oh, I’ll need that for the salad. I’ll ask my mate Alan to put the pizzas and scampi in the oven. It’s quite nice, that beer, isn’t it?
A: It is quite nice, what is it?
It’s Efes. My local Turkish supplier, you see. It’s just cheap as chips, you can get six for a fiver.
A: You can’t argue with that. So when did you move to London from Somerset?
I got here in ’96. I didn’t do too well on my A Levels, I got two E’s and I wasn’t even on E’s in those days. I was on amphetamines and coke. Finally London Guildhall took me in.
Wolfgang: What course did you do?
I got a 2:1 in Politics. After two years of mad stuff happening, in my last year I just pulled through. I gave up all drugs, all alcohol, I was smoking forty B&H Gold a day and drinking lots of tea and coffee, not sleeping much, very agitated, but I got my degree.
A: What mad stuff do you mean?
There are many crazy years… The whole period after my wife…
W: You were married?
Yes, for five years. I was married to a beautiful Israeli girl. Because I am bi, you know. Boys and girls, I see beauty in both. You might see my boyfriend later. (Gesturing at a wardrobe bursting with gold lurex and oversized high heels) That’s all his stuff. That’s Johan’s sewing machine. Johan’s Swedish. He’s beautiful.
A: Does he make his own clothes then?
Yeah, he’s pretty fucking talented. He’s a sharp kiddie. I like him. I love him too. Anyway, I got to London and I was making a fortune in the halls of residence. You’ve got 400 kids who’ve got no drugs at all. I’d only come up with like two ounces of hash and I noticed in the first week most of it had gone. I went back home to Somerset to go and get more, and when I came back again everybody wanted bits and pieces. And then before you knew it I was dealing hash, dealing coke, because it’s a monopoly market. I made more money in the first year than I’m making now.
A: How much?
About as much as I was when I had a job. I was an advertising consultant for four years, so I was earning about £32,000.
W: You were an advertising consultant?
It’s horrible, isn’t it? A nasty little job. But to get my band going I needed money, and I needed a job with a phone.
Alex (having misheard the previous answer): So you earned more dealing than you did doing that?
Well, you just want to sensationalise the quotes, don’t you? You’re trying to make me into being a bad person because I do drugs when really I’m more organised than a lot of my peers. I still have to get up in the morning and work, OK?
W: But Alex didn’t say…
Just ’cause I say that I’ve done crack and coke, that doesn’t make me evil. I still work hard every day. I probably work harder than you do. I’ve got twelve months, right, and if I don’t sell 40,000 fucking records I won’t get the chance to make my second album. So don’t try and twist things to the drug angle, that I made more money dealing than I do now. Of course I did! Drug dealers make a fortune!
W: Come on, so much for sensationalism – I’m more interested in the fact that you’ve got 1,700 fans’ numbers in your phone.
What we’re trying to do is build a community. When you first come to London it’s pretty tricky getting accepted. Say you’re really into music, the clubs you want to go to won’t allow you in because you might look a bit strange, and if you want to go and meet the bands it’s only a selected few who get backstage. So from day one I gave my telephone number out on our website, and what we’ve done is we’ve built up a network of people. That’s what our fan club, the 853rd Kamikaze Stage Diving Division, is about. And then at night, wherever we are in the country, the band will go to bed at half eleven, twelve o’clock and me and Alan will spend all our hours with all of the fans until six or seven in the morning, then get four hours sleep and start again. You get scenes where I leave the venue with 60, 100 kids.
A: Are your fans people who always wanted to be in a gang when they were younger but were excluded?
I do feel we get a lot of outcasts.
W: What’s the gay/straight ratio?
We’ve had gay fans from the start, but this guy Josh has openly said ‘Yes, we should have our own division’. So he’s gone onto our website and said ‘How many people will sign up for the gay 853?’ ’Cause the 853 has got many different branches. You’ve got the 1-2 Crew, they’re the kids who catch the people who stage dive. Then you’ve got the splinter groups like the Coolio 5, the Coolio 6, the RDD, there’s the FPP, the Fountain Pissing Pots or something, then there’s VABS, Violence At Bus Stops, that’s the northern division…
W: And this all works through the Internet?
Pretty much. I do the phones, unless I’m doing an interview or I need sleep. I write text messages down in a book and when I get back off tour or from a hard night out and I can’t sleep – Johan usually sleeps before me – I’ll lie in bed for about three hours going through every message. That’s why sometimes it can be a bit hurtful when people don’t talk about all the good that you do. I don’t want to be seen to be endorsing drugs, but I don’t want to be seen as shying away from the issue. It’s the same with sexuality. Franz Ferdinand won’t talk about it but I’m willing.
A: What annoyed you about Franz Ferdinand?
I thought they should have talked more openly and more progressively. It’s dead important that kids have role models. When I was young, what did I have? Morrissey, who wouldn’t even talk about sexuality; so I hated The Smiths. Who else, Boy George? Fuck that! I had to try to find other sexual role models like Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth. I mean have you ever heard the song Androgynous Mind?
A: No.
It’s on Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star – listen to it. When you’re thirteen and you hear Androgynous Mind, that’s pretty much it, man.
A: What do the lyrics say?
Listen to the fucking song. I listened to Lou Reed… I had to go backwards to find role models. It was important for me to find gay role models who were strong, who didn’t have to act or behave in some T-shirt-clad, skinhead, hi-NRG trance, Old Compton Street, stereotypical gay manner. Do you know what I mean? It’s horrible, it’s degrading, it’s disgusting. Makes us into vermin. I don’t want to be ghetto-ised. I don’t want to hang out in a safe street full of gay kids because it’s the only place I can hang out. I don’t want to have to behave in a stereotypical way to be with those people. Gay people are normal people as well. Look at me! I’m fucking normal. When you see me on tour, you see lads who would normally be into The Stone Roses or Oasis come up to you and say ‘Fucking blinding gig’. Normal heterosexual blokes, if they see that you’re just as normal as them but you shag boys then it doesn’t really matter to them. As soon as you start hiding something or as soon as you start behaving like some idea of a stereotypical gay man, that’s when people start getting aggressive because you’re not yourself then. And (adopts camp voice) talking in a different voice. They don’t like that because they see that as an intrusion on them. So you’ve got to be normal with people to make people understand – I really do think that.
A: Then again, you’ve got a right to express your sexuality however you choose, and being camp is as valid as being straight acting.
Fuck that. Honestly. Why have you got to change your voice? It’s a mannerism! Nobody is raised to be camp.
A: I think some people are naturally camp.
W: Of course they are. There are sissy boys who are just…camp. My friend showed me a picture of himself when he was eight and he wanted to wear lipstick. He danced with the girls in the ballet class.
That sounds very much like Johan. I just don’t believe there’s a need to act camp.
A: It’s annoying when a certain aspect of gay life is used to represent all of it, I suppose. But the more diversity there is the better, right?
I kind of like Will and Grace – they give two sides of the gay coin. You’ve got your normal guy Will and the other guy who’s absolutely, totally effeminate. I just believe that there are a lot of walls still to knock down in Britain when it comes to people’s social attitudes. I took Johan to Newquay in the summer. I thought yeah, surfers, they vote Liberal Democrat down there, there’s got to be a chance of a liberal community. But the amount of people you get staring at you holding hands down the street and looking at you like ‘Ey up…’ It was very strange to see but we still held hands and we still went to restaurants. (Dominic emerges from the kitchen with two blackened pizzas) It’s a bit burnt, but it’s not too bad. I’ll get salad and stuff.
A: Can you pass me one over please? (Removing a strange plastic disc from the bottom which appears to be part of the packaging) I need a knife as well.
This is quite a nice pizza, actually, this is sun-dried tomato, peppers and goats cheese. We should raise a toast to a really good year in 2005, fingers crossed.
A: Cheers, here’s to 2005. So when you said that people were looking at you and Johan in Newquay, why was that? Was it because it was two blokes, or because of the way he was dressed?
Johan’s a dapper dresser. He’s taller than me and he’s very stunning…
A: So sometimes he dresses in men’s clothes and sometimes in women’s clothes?
It’s hard to say, really.
W: How did you meet?
At a transvestite club, Way Out.
A: I heard that there’s a transvestite sex club called Stunners out Limehouse way. Have you been there?
Well, my days of being a tranny are well over. That was when I split up from my wife. The time that went into the hair and make-up and the fucking nails and the waxing and the clothes and everything! I’d go to the Way Out club and hope that I’d find some other boy of the same sexuality who was into the same things, and that’s how I met Johan. Being a tranny is a great way of shaking off all the problems of a five-days-a-week, mundane job. I didn’t even have to do drugs. And after doing that once or twice a week every week for two years, as well as the band and my job, in the end I didn’t have time and I was falling into the stereotype of what a tranny is meant to be. I started thinking to myself about how people ridicule trannies. It’s disgusting. It’s only clothes. That’s why when I’m in The Others I just wear normal clothes. I shouldn’t have to wear rock ‘n’ roll clothes because I’m in a rock ‘n’ roll band. I shouldn’t have to dress like I’m gay ’cause I’m gay. You know what I mean? And it’s the same thing with trannies. People just think trannies are all prostitutes. Johan was never a fucking prostitute, neither was I.
A: Do people really think that?
Oh, fucking come on. Trannies get a bad rep, man. Even in the gay community. And people should have the sexual tolerance in this fucking country to understand that they’re the third sex, as simple as that. Where’s the Caesar salad dressing? And the croutons? They’re quite nice, these.
A: They’re very nice.
We’ve got some really nice dessert. (Hunting around on the floor) Did you see the anchovies? I eat a lot of anchovies.
W: You’ve got quite middle class taste.
I’ve always eaten well with my mother. You can be poor but not have to live on Tesco value products.
W: So the record company have told you you’ve got to sell 40,000 records to break even?
It’s in the fucking contract, man! If you don’t sell 40,000 records your career’s over. I’ve got a six-album deal, right, but five of them are options. I think I can do 40,000 but if I don’t, it’s ‘See you later Dom’.
A: Has anyone ever told you to downplay your sexuality?
Oh yeah! Totally. I was told ‘better not talk about it’, so in my second interview I talked all about it, just to go against it.
A: Who was it that told you?
I can’t tell you. Nice try though. Again Alex, great try, I can see why you’re a journalist, you work really hard. But you can’t do confidentiality bollocks with me.
W: Come on, I would have asked that out of curiosity. Was it the record company, the management?
I told you I did the right thing on my second interview. So you know everyone else is evil and I’m good, right, and that’s what you need to work with. Do you think I’m still working with that bloke?
A: I don’t know, are you?
Of course I’m not.
A: Why do you want to protect him then?
Because he’s a fool. That’s what makes him a fool. It’s just the way he thinks. Because he thinks that way, he won’t have a job in two years. He’ll be outdated. Society will have changed and he’ll be left behind. He can fuck himself over. I don’t need to fuck him over. I’m not that bitter.
A: Can I ask you another question about your sexuality? Do you have a sexual preference for men or women, or are they all really the same to you?
You’re all as beautiful as each other. It’s like, look, I’ve got two men in front of me now. You’re different blokes, you all have different features that make you different and special. So what, there’s no difference between breasts or a vagina or anything. I find it really hard to choose what’s best.
A: Well, sex with a man and sex with a woman must be very different experiences.
It’s tighter with a boy, yes. There you go. That’s what it is, you bend a boy over and you fuck a boy and they’re a lot tighter. You fuck a girl and they’re less tight. What do you want me to say?
A: Well, I’d have thought that the relations between genders were different for a start, but if that’s what you’ve found…
What’s the difference between a boy and a girl? They’re all the same. You get nasty people and you get good people. I usually fall in love with boys and girls who’ve got really pretty eyes, really bubbly personalities and who are honest and kind and genuine.
W: Are you monogamous in relationships?
Oh, with Johan yes.
A: How long have you been going out?
About two years. He came over here after I split up with my wife. We went out together when I was with her. When I split up with her, he came over, and we’ve been together ever since. He’s half boy, half girl; he’s up and down. It’s a hard experience if you’re taking anti-testosterone and hormones and oestrogen.
A: Does that affect his moods?
It can make him a bit tricky to navigate, but as he says to me…
A: I guess if you’re on a comedown you’re just as bad. Is he going to become all girl at some point?
I genuinely don’t know. That has nothing to do with me, it’s his thing. The best I can say is he’s half and half. Do you fancy some dessert? Oh man, this is such good cake. There’s some double cream there.
W: Can you pass it over, please?
A: By the way, you know you said earlier that you didn’t have any gay punk role models? He’s before your time, but what about Pete Shelley and his record Homosapien?
We had him in our kitchen one night. He had a bit of a smoke with us, had a drink with us, did a bit of drugs, was hanging around with all these young scamps, kept it real. He was never patronising or condescending. I stayed awake with him until the early hours of the next day. He slept on the couch. When I awoke there was no one there but the quilt was folded up.
A: Such good manners as well.
Seriously. I probably wouldn’t do that because I’m really messy.