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Article published Sep 5, 2008 MACHO MEN: The Village People still going strong, 30 years later
By Steve Wildsmith of The Daily Times Staff
There's some sort of irony in a guy who dresses up as a stereotypical headdress-wearing, war paint-slathered Native American for a group that symbolizes the Disco Era and has become something of a mascot for America's gay community calling another guy a freak.
But for Felipe Rose, the "original Indian" of the Village People, that's exactly what happened when he was first approached in a Greenwich Village bar about starting the band that helps kick off the Tennessee Valley Fair tonight.
"I'm like the catapult -- the mascot, or the ignition, or the spark where everything started," Rose told The Daily Times this week. "The idea came to Jacques Morali (the group's founder) when he heard the bells around my ankles while I was dancing in a club. He said, 'Oh my God, look at that guy!' And then he came up to me and said he wanted to do something with me. I looked at him like, 'You're a freak. Go away!'
"Well, he came back a couple of weeks later and said, 'No, really -- I'm a producer, and I want to do something with you, professionally!' I asked one of my friends who he was, and they told me that yes, he was really a producer. So I called the number and spoke to his partner at the time, Henri (Belolo), and so I went to meet them at an office on Madison Avenue. That's when they told me they wanted to put together a singing group of cowboys and Indians and other typical male stereotypes."
That was in 1977, and at the time, Rose was convinced the gimmick would be short-lived. But it was a job, and a paycheck, so he agreed. Morali held auditions and soon filled other roles in the group -- "Construction Worker," "Biker," "Cowboy," "Police Officer" and "G.I." With Rose as one of the founders, the Village People were born.
Thirty years later, they're still performing, much to Rose's surprise.
"Did I think it would last 30 years? H to the no! I honestly thought, and some of us all though, it was going to be one album and we would be out of there," Rose said. "Disco was such a novelty, and I thought we'd just have a record in the clubs and make some money. I wasn't thinking charts or radio; in fact, I was already thinking ahead, trying to figure out what my next gig would be."
Although Morali and Belolo formed the group, once the members gelled as performers and friends, they took over the creative direction, Rose added.
"While the songs were written and being produced, we were adding life like air to a balloon," he said. "We added life to the characters, and we wrote and produced the shows ourselves, stringing together what we did and what we sang like you would a bunch of pearls."
The group's self-titled debut album yielded the minor hit "San Francisco (You've Got Me)," which peaked at No. 45 on the U.K. charts. It was the band's 1978 follow-up, however, that put them on the map at a time when disco was reaching a crescendo -- "Macho Man," which reached No. 26. The album "Cruisin'," released that same year, would give the band its biggest hit -- "Y.M.C.A.," which reached No. 2 on the charts. That success would be repeated the next year with "In the Navy," which was commissioned for a recruitment campaign by the U.S. Navy, in exchange for allowing the band access to the Naval base in San Diego, where a warship, several aircraft and dozens of sailors were used to film a video for the song. (The Navy later canceled the campaign.)
It was at the Canada Jam in 1978 when Rose realized just how big what he originally thought of as a "gimmick" had become -- 110,000 people turned out to see the Village People, The Commodores and dozens of other groups perform their hits. The news program "20/20" did a piece on the band, and what started out as a dismissive piece on an urban disco group, Rose pointed out, actually ended up validating just how talented -- and popular -- the Village People had become.
"They were trying to make it much ado about nothing, but at the end of the day, they made it into something," he said. "At the end of the day, we did receive credit for what we were doing, because we were busting our chops."
The band's fame peaked in 1979, when the Village People were featured on the cover of Rolling Stone. Shortly thereafter, some of the original members left the group, and the Village People began to fade along with the disco phenomenon. The band tried to fit in with New Wave, even ditching the costumes and flamboyant personalities for the album "Renaissance," but the effort did little to attract attention.
The members went their separate ways for two years after 1985, reforming a few years later and gradually picking up steam as nostalgia for the 1970s -- and The Village People's place in popular culture -- was romanticized. Endless debates and arguments have been made about the group's ties to the gay community, and while the band has been held up as icons of the gay and lesbian movement -- a fact they're proud of, Rose added -- there was never any subversive intent with the music.
"We're just not that clever!" he said with a laugh. "When I think of something like that, I think of Madonna, with 'Like a Virgin.' She lucked out and thought, 'Oh good -- I might as well start applying myself with religion and the 'Papa Don't Preach,' and it all gelled together for her. It played out with a synopsis.
"For us, the 16-year-old kids were the ones who bought our records. They made it pop. And when you leave your roots and move onto the mainstream like we did, a lot of people accuse you of leaving your community. The gay community, the club community -- everybody was hating. They accused us of no longer being a part of, but I was like, 'I'm making money! I want to work! I don't want to sit in a bar and drink beer with your ass all day!'"
At the same time, the band members have been careful to guard their private lives. Rose has made a name for himself in the Native American community, having recorded and performed a number of spiritual projects that have earned him three Native American Music Awards. But when it comes to the Village People, he said, none of that matters -- he and his bandmates are unified, as a group and as a business, and their tenacity has allowed them to make it as long as they have.
Even more so, it's allowed them to thrive as memories of the 1970s grow fonder by the Baby Boomer generation.
"Today, we're like the Temptations of disco," he said. "We're the grandfathers of disco. When I go out on stage, I carry with me a sense of history, and it's something I can't even describe in words. A lot of our friends who started out in the business when we did are not in it any more. They're doing other things, other careers. And a lot of my friends are now grandparents -- but I'm still discoing."