Go West and Nik Kershaw share stage at Hawth during new tour

Now they are sharing a stage in the UK for the first time ever.

Go West and Nik Kershaw hit the road for a tour taking in The Hawth in Crawley on October 23 – a collaboration which will see the artists work together on new interpretations of some of their hits and offer a few surprises along the way.

Go West’s Peter Cox and Richard Drummie and Nik Kershaw will combine to create what they promise will be the ultimate ’80s experience, a night with hits including ‘King Of Wishful Thinking’, ‘We Close Our Eyes’ and ‘I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’.

Richard said: “Earlier in the year we went out and did some stuff in South Africa with a lot of people, and I have always been a big fan of Nik’s. We go out every other year in England and do a full-scale tour, and the last time we went out was with The Christians.”

Nik seemed the perfect new partner – especially as they will at one point perform alongside him: “I am really not exaggerating to say it is a privilege. We have always liked each other’s material, and it is amazing to be doing some of his stuff.”

As for their own, Richard counts it amazing it has lasted so well: “It’s like after a certain amount of time, people just leave you alone and say, OK, you can carry on. We have been performing together, Pete and I, for 30 years, and we have known each other for 40 years.

“We were both living in Twickenham, and my band got reviewed in the local paper.”

One thing led to another, Richard and Peter met: “And I said to him ‘have you got a tape of your band?’ Of course he did. We all had a tape of our band in our back pocket back then. He gave me a tape, and I just loved what his band was doing. The singer in our band had his jaw out a little bit. He said ‘I don’t think they are very good.’”

But a collaboration evolved: “It wasn’t like anyone said ‘Let’s form a band!’ The first Go West gig was actually after we were signed. We had both been in four-piece bands, and we both knew all the negative sides of that. We wanted to do it just the two of us. It was for financial reasons, but also we had got tired of four-piece bands. We thought if it was just the two of us, it would be more fun.”

For a while, the duo were Cox & Drummie, but the breakthrough didn’t come; and when they started approaching the same people again, it seemed like a good idea to do so with a different name. It worked.

Of course, they went their separate ways in the end: “I blame Pete for that,” laughs Richard. “He went off and did solo stuff after two top tens in the States. We had had a lot of success, but success does not necessarily mean happiness. We had been in the States for three years, and we had had enough of each other. But actually Pete loved living in America. He wanted to stay there, and I didn’t. I wanted to come back to the UK. There were other factors. My father had just passed away. I wanted to come back and start a family and build a studio, and Pete got on with his solo stuff.”

It was only once the kids were grown up that Richard contemplated a reunion. The fun has returned, largely because of a refusal to be a museum band. Yes, they do the hits: “But musically we are wanting to move forward as well.”

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