Some of the faces may have changed, but the Village People remain a constant in parties – especially wedding parties – nearly 40 years after the first spangled crowd-participation extension of arms marking the chorus of the group’s signature hit “YMCA.” The band rode the zeitgeist of the sexual revolution, specifically the gay fringes of said movement, into the living rooms of families who had no idea what they were signing up for. Subversive? Yes. Important? Indeed.
Watermark spoke with founding member, he of the Native American feathered headdress, Felipe Rose in advance of the group’s current incarnation performing at the Aspire Health Partners gala on Oct. 29 in Orlando.
“I thought it was just going to be an album! I thought it would be one album and then I’m out of there,” he says. “No one looks ahead.”
Watermark: I love the story of Jacques Morali approaching you while you were in full headdress in the Village in New York. What was your initial response to that moment?
Felipe Rose: I didn’t put too much thought into it, because I just thought that I was in the right place at the right time. This was only going to be a project and then I would be on to the next thing.
What were you doing at the time, other than being fabulous in the nightlife scene?
I was a professional dancer and singer. So I thought that this was just a project and how I got paid, and next I’ll go off to an audition. My dream was to go to Broadway. Well, that never happened.
I thought it was just going to be an album! I thought it would be one album and then I’m out of there. No one looks ahead.
It crossed over in such a strange way. Do you get a lot of people coming up to you and saying that seeing the Village People, say on American Bandstand or on television, was the first time they were allowed to feel what they really felt authentically about sexuality?
I don’t think that was a really big thing on American Bandstand; we were just performing. What people saw on television and what they perceived is something else I have no control over. When I have people tell me that I’m the reason they came out, I tell them, “No, I’m not. You came out all on your own.”
Do you think it was interesting that straight America really took to the Village People at that time? Disco walked the camp line, obviously, with Sylvester leading the cruise ship.
Well,we really knew we didn’t want to be Sylvester. Sylvester already was androgynous, and that, to me, I was not an androgynous young man. I liked being masculine. I liked my sexuality as a young gay man. A lot of people, they try to break it down too much and they come out to the same thing. The Village People was a unique group and it still is, although there are different members. When one member left, I had the ability to just think as co-founder and president of the company along with some of the other members. “We need a new construction worker? Great, well we’ve got this guy. We need a new cowboy? OK, let me look for a cowboy.” I found Jim Newman off of Broadway waited for him for a year. As the group kept going decade after decade, we just kept the thing going. Unfortunately I stayed too long, I should have left years ago. It’s too late now. I’m tired and I want to leave. I’m tired of the road, and I go through the motions and I perform. I love performing, but once I walk off the stage I leave it behind.
What do you make of the cult classic Can’t Stop the Music? Do you think that was a sort of nadir of the Village People? It came at the same time as the whole “Disco Sucks”demolition-night stadium event at Cominski Park [1979]. How do you look back on that period, that sort of changing period?
That was so hypocritical. Those very same people today are going to our concerts. It’s so hypocritical on their part, the fact that they burned records that they bought and yet, in the mid-‘90s, they had us back to perform on the field. I look at it this way: It was disgruntled white DJ’s on radio stations that wanted to kill disco off cause they felt threatened by it.
And it was a little homophobic at the same time.
Yeah. I have no problem calling people white because of the kind of shade and attitude they throw. The only way that I feel safe in this world is in my own community. I have no problem. You know I like people, don’t get me wrong; I like my fans, don’t get me wrong – but I draw the line: Thank you, good bye, see you later. What happened in Orlando [the Pulse massacre on June 12], I’ve been suppressing anger for so many months that I really don’t even know how to begin talking about my disdain for people that talk out the side of their mouths.
When the HIV/AIDS epidemic came through the ‘80s, did you feel like the Village People had to change their tone a little bit?
No, no, because a lot of gay people actually said – I can’t remember where I heard it, but I know I heard it, that we were responsible for the AIDS epidemic – it’s in writing; you can find it.
How do you respond to that?
There were people that were saying that because of the promiscuous lifestyle we were pushing, we were responsible for the AIDS epidemic. That’s a crock of shit. I’m 62 years old, I’m healthy, I’m negative, I take good care of myself. I say the best revenge is to live well. To me, it’s not funny. I lost phone books of friends. We do what we can to take care of each other. My voice today is not as loud as Lady Gaga’s. She is more relevant. She can stand on a podium, a soap box, and read out names. If I did that hear in Asbury Park, they would think I’m crazy.
On a more positive note, what is your fondest memory of the heyday.
The biggest rush that I’ve ever had was receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I’m not going to write my memoirs ever. A lot of that stuff, while there were many highs, there were many lows. In order to be truthful, you can’t write one without the other. And in my case, I’m not writing anything at all.
