Bros' Matt Goss speaks ahead of Birmingham gig - interview

He's an hour late. One whole hour. That's the time it takes to listen to 16 different cover versions of Taylor Swift's Shake It Off, watch a third of The Hobbit or Mo Farah to run a half marathon.

But that doesn't matter, he's Matt Goss. He could've been three hours late and we'd have still made the call. Because for all of the celebrities that pass through Weekend Towers, the boy-band-star turned middle-aged-but-still-good-looking-pop-star is the one that sets pulses racing.

Matt is talking to us from his home in LA. He moved there to take up a residency at Caesars Palace, where he performs at Cleopatra's Barge every Friday and Saturday night. Though Las Vegas has been home for some years, Matt's booked on a first-class flight back to Blighty next August when the reformed Bros will play sell-out shows at London's O2 before heading further north to headline Birmingham's Barclaycard Arena. The heart throb can't wait.

"It's gonna be amazing. It's really, really exciting. It's going to be a phenomenal thing to go on stage with my brother. I've been on stage all my life. We're gonna crash it."

And yet, as recently as 2014, it seemed as though a reunion between Luke and Matt was as likely as an astronaut on Pluto. The brothers lived different lives with Luke developing his career as an actor. He'd starred in major movies from as far back as 2002, including Blade II, One Night With The King, The Golden Army, Tekken and Interview With a Hitman. In 2007, he'd moved out to Los Angeles with his wife, Shirley.

See Bros' video for When Will I Be Famous? from back in 1988 here:

Matt, meanwhile, seemed as though he'd never really got over his brother's decision to walk out on the band 25 years ago. He'd successfully built a career as a solo singer releasing five albums and earning a long-standing residence in Vegas, following in the footsteps of his Rat Pack idols.

That all changed, however, with the death of the Goss twin's mother, Carol, who had been the biggest support in their career. She'd raised them in humble surrounds in London and helped propel them to international fame. In 2014, she passed away after losing her battle with cancer. Matt and Luke were devastated, with Matt taking to Twitter to post a picture of a stairway to heaven alongside the words: "You gave me life my beautiful mother, yet life will never be the same without you. Rest in the arms of God. I will always love you."

The brothers became close again following Carol's death as Luke helped Matt through the darkest time of his life. Matt says: "Me and my brother have had our ups and downs. We've had a lot of offers over the years but they didn't feel right. You have to feel like you're connected.

"Luke and I were born on the same day then we went to school together and then we joined a band. After a while, things got too much. There were the constant comparisons of being twins and we almost ended up almost not wanting to look like ourselves. We didn't want to look like Bros.

"Eventually, we found ourselves again."

They came together earlier this year. A handshake and a nod of the head was all it took for them to agree on the biggest pop band reunion of 2017. "We both left our country and I miss Britain with all my heart and soul. My brother has established himself as an actor and has done extremely well and I've done well as a singer.

"We've both done a lot. So after all this time, to sit with my brother and be in a good personal space is great. We talked about doing a gig and decided it would be a f****** good laugh. So when we were in England, I walked into Live Nation, our promoter. I popped the question to Andy Copping, who I work with, that that was it. We made the decision there and then. It all felt surreal."

Publically, Matt maintained a tactful silence. He was interviewed for TV and press and asked whether the band might reform, amid a whirlwind of rumour and speculation. "A newspaper said I would be announcing the reunion at my Wembley show but I didn't. It just worked out perfectly. When we announced it, we reached 400 million people that day. We were trending globally for a good solid eight or nine hours. We were number one all over the world. It's a phenomenal feeling to get that sort of feedback."

Somewhere along the way, the Bros story got lost under an avalanche of rumour, lies and mythology. They were famed as being one of the great boy bands of the 1980s and were managed by Pet Shop Boys svengali Tom Watkins. The boys, however, never saw themselves that way. They were the opposite of an X Factor-style boy band, the antithesis of a manufactured group. Luke and Matt had, in fact, been in five bands by the time they were 16. Matt laughs: "Some of them were dodgy. Our first band was called Caviar, but we didn't know what caviar was when we gave ourselves the name. We just knew it was expensive. Then we found out what it was and thought we'd better change our name because it was fish eggs."

They were, however, very young when success arrived. When Bros released their first single, I Owe You Nothing, they were still just 19. And when their second single, When Will I Be Famous, which provided the break-through hitting number two in the chart, they quickly had to grow up. They did so through the gaze of tabloid lenses.

"When people come up to me, they feel as though they know me. All I can say is that we feel like we're part of the furniture. It's always 'how's your brother, or how's Vegas?' People feel like we're their mates. That's happened because we grew up in the public eye and we never did anything that comprised our family's integrity."

Ah yes, family. Family is everything to Matt. As well it might be. He and Luke grew up without material comforts and strove to be successful. And yet, despite their success in Bros, they left the band with next to nothing. Their British tour in 1988, for instance, grossed £1.623 million. It cost £1.33m to stage. Management commission was £286,000. That left £4,860 to be split between Matt, Luke and their former bandmate Craig Logan. In total, Bros earned around £6m – when they split, they ended up with less than nothing.

"Family to me is everything. It's not just family. It's loyalty. That's everything. It's 100 per cent with my mates, too, or my manager Rob Ferguson. I've been with Rob for 27 years and we haven't had a single disagreement.

"There are people who've come and gone and tried to rip us off or mess with our lives. But people like Rob, you know that they've got your back and I pride myself on that.

"When you're in this industry, you go through extreme loss in your life and your friends became your family too. But Luke is the love of my life. You mess with Luke then you're messing with me. And you mess with me and you're messing with a lot of people. I've been in this business a long time.

"Loyalty gives you freedom and family and friends are always number one. Listen, we grew up with nothing. Me and my brother were sitting on the floor, making jewellery with my mum and trying to make enough money to survive.

"We were just a little family that just had to get through it and we did. We didn't grow up with anything. But I can honestly say I never wanted for anything because of the love my mum created. I felt like the richest fella in the world. She wasn't just the strongest woman, she was the strongest person. That's in my blood."

His mother taught him to be respectful, to be positive, to look on the bright side. "I believe in lifting people up. If somebody's driving a nice motor, I'm like 'nice job mate'. Anything is possible. My mum used to make me feel anything is possible. I feel like that when I'm with my brother, there's an energy that happens."

So when it came to life post-Bros, Matt was equipped to cope – just about. The money had gone and being poor and famous is a slow form of torture. He took the fast route out of town, never looking back.

"Look, if you were to lose your job today, you either have to get up or die. I always choose to get up and so does my brother. It takes extreme determination. I knew that I didn't want to be in the UK because I couldn't move. Me and my brother, our faces are still very well known in the UK and fame does not go away.

"People know you and feel they can comment on your life. So I got out the country 30 days after Bros split. That in itself was challenging. You think about it, you've just played to 77,000 people and then you go. I felt like my brother had had enough. Luke just called me and said he was quitting. I told him we wouldn't always have a number one or two record. But we were selling 600,000 to 700,000 singles every time. It's 15,000 for bands these days. So I remember just having to make a decision and doing whatever it took to keep moving forward. Fame wasn't my driving force, my driving force has always been about making memories."

See Bros perform I Owe You Nothing live in 1998 here:

And now they're back to make some more. When Bros announced their first date, at London's O2, it sold out almost instantly. There was nothing for it but to announce another slew of dates, including arena shows in Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and Glasgow. Beyond that, the future is in the lap of the Gods.

"We just want to do these shows and see what happens. We don't want to be nostalgic. We want to blow people's minds. Musically, me and my brother are such perfectionists. We want it to be the definition of escapism and we want people to have an amazing night out."

There are times when being Matt Goss is like being from another planet. While some of his schoolmates grew up to be plasterers, cabbies or office workers, Matt grew up sing for (vice) presidents and Hollywood A-listers. He grew up to take private jets to the home of one of the greatest sportsmen of all time. Singing for Muhammed Ali in May 2015 was one of the greatest moments of his life.

"I boxed. I'm a big boxing fan. We got a private jet to where he was living – I ain't being flash – and I spent the day with him. He'd got the shorts he wore in Rumble in the Jungle. They've still got the blood on them. I just sat with him and he asked me if I would sing for him. So I sat on the floor in his living room, held his hand and sang to him. Ali was eyes-wide-open. It was a really beautiful moment. He was fixated. He was as strong as an ox. His arms were as hard as wood. He was a seriously, strong, strong man. Very beautiful man."

He also got to sing for Barack Obama's right hand man, USA Vice President Joe Biden.

But for all of the highlights, there's an equal number of lowlights. When Luke and Matt became public property they lost control over the way they were portrayed. And for years, they read tabloid hatchet jobs that were at best fanciful and at worst completely fictitious.

"You know, back in the day there would not have been a soapbox big enough to correct all the wrong. You'd read something and it was literally like being kicked in the face. The British press was so powerful back then.

"But things have changed in the last 15/20 years I've had a great relationship with the press. What I say is the truth. A lot of people have seen that we've never taken the easy route. We work and we want to keep pushing boundaries.

"It's all different now, too, because of social media. Now, when somebody says something about me I can go on Twitter, Perispcope or Facebook Live and say 'That was b******s'.

Being in Vegas has given Matt the chance to live out more of his dreams. And Vegas ain't easy. He has to bring his A Game to the table 200 nights a year as tourists from around the world flock to see him sing. He connects with his fans. Rather than hiding away in his dressing room, Matt sticks around to talk to those who've shelled out their hard-earned dollars. Some of the interactions have been truly remarkable.

"I had a fella come up to me and say he had the best night. I'd told the audience the story about losing my mum and he said he was really touched because he'd also just lost his mum. I told him I was sorry for his loss and I asked when his mum had passed away. He said: 'I lost her today. I just wanted to be somewhere tonight that she would have loved.'

"That's powerful stuff. We kept in touch and he and his wife – Chris and Kathryn – have become friends. Truth is, this is always so much more than a show. Music transcends everything. It is the tapestry of life. Think about what we do to music – make love, eat, drink, laugh, cry, work out. We do everything to it. Every movie has music in it. Music can create more emotion than anything."

And does he still feel his mother watching over him?

"Of course. I had a chat with my mum last night. I know she's around me. And me doing the Bros stuff with Luke next year, well, I know she's looking down on me and my brother. She used to call us 'my boys'. She'd say: 'Show people what you are made of'." And that's what they're going to do.

We've spoken for twice as long as we should have done and the most striking characteristic that Matt has displayed is this: humility. In the hardest times, it's been the wisdom he learned from his mum that's kept him going. It's mutual respect and hard work that have pulled him through. And, like them or not, few can deny their triumphant comeback, their summer in the sun.

"I have this thing where you should go out of your way to be kind and call somebody, every day. It goes a long way."

And so do other basics. "That's right. The only thing I would say is left foot, right foot. That's what keeps you going. And sometimes you have to dance along the way."

They're the words his mother, Carol, taught him. And they'll always be the most important of his life.

Bros are at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham on Friday, August 25. Tickets cost from £45.80. Visit www.barclaycardarena.co.uk or call 0844 33 88 222.

By Andy Richardson