Debbie Gibson on her turning point: ‘I felt like I was selling my soul’

Debbie Gibson remembers three things from the last time she toured Australia 37 years ago in 1989.

“I remember holding a koala bear. I remember being presented with a gold record at the Hard Rock Cafe. And I remember the cute boys from Indecent Obsession. They opened for me and I dated David Dixon for a minute back in New York,” she says with a laugh.

At 55, the ’80s pop icon – who will tour Australia this August and September with Go West – barely looks a decade beyond her teen phenom days. In her home studio in Las Vegas, she keeps the era’s mementos nearby.

“My original Electric Youth sign is right here,” she says, swinging her laptop camera around to reveal the giant neon sign that graced the cover of her chart-topping 1989 album. “It’s normally plugged in, but when I’m doing interviews it makes me look a little green, like Elphaba vibes.”

1. Worst habit?
I’m so messy. I cannot put things back where I found them, which is weird because I’m a Virgo. I wouldn’t call myself a hoarder, but I do have a lot of stuff. Fans give me gifts all the time on the road and I hate parting with them. I’m a dachshund mum, so I get a lot of dachshund-themed gifts. And because they’re also called “wiener dogs”, some of the gifts are a little wink-wink.

2. Greatest fear?
I have this running joke with my voice teacher: sometimes when I’m singing, he’ll say: “Be a little more nonchalant.” It’s because I’m an over-singer, over-doer, over everything! We joke that I’m not nonchalant, I’m chalant. My biggest fear is becoming so nonchalant that I don’t care about things. I pride myself on being very invested in things I care about. I would never want to be walking around numb, dulled down, not present.

3. The line that has stayed with you?
It’s by my songwriting hero, Billy Joel: “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun.” I love the rebellion in that lyric. It’s a line about being fully alive.

I was never known to be a bad girl, but I have a mischievous side. I went to a gala last week where people were in gowns, and I was fixated on wearing this rock ‘n’ roll mini dress. That’s my rebellion against ageism and sexism.

I’ve always been the kind of girl who could hold my own doing whatever. I sang I Wanna Destroy You with the Circle Jerks at CBGB and I stage-dove head first. I didn’t realise it would have been a lot more economical to go backwards.

4. Biggest regret?
I had a cat named Gleason, but I went through a very challenging time in my 30s, financially and emotionally – I was essentially divorcing my late mum as my manager – and I was like, “I’m giving up my house, I’m going on the road, I can’t take care of him!” And so I rehomed him. The me I am now couldn’t fathom doing that. I wish I’d had the mental and emotional tools back then to figure out a solution.

Similarly, there was an apartment I gave up and I’m always going, “Darn it! If only I still had it.” I chose at the time to use that money to make an album, but I wish I’d figured out a way to keep the apartment too. It was on the corner of 81st and Columbus in New York, a duplex on the first floor. I had it renovated and I loved it. But back then, my lifestyle didn’t matter to me. All I cared about was my art.

5. Tell us about your turning point.
It was in my early 40s. I had been doing reality shows, and I was on a show about real estate. I did not have the money to be buying a $10 million apartment in New York City at that time, but – because these shows are supposed to be aspirational – the show didn’t want to do tours of $3000-a-month rentals. That kind of dishonesty felt like I was selling my soul a bit.

It was a symptom of how I started in the music business. When you start out you’re told you’re supposed to do whatever is asked of you to sell records, and so you get a little brainwashed into saying yes and disconnecting from what is authentic. I was an independent artist already but that’s when I became my own woman, like, “I’m doing things on my terms”.

It’s what I would caution younger artists: don’t say yes to everything. All you have for currency is your honesty and your integrity. Your fans stick with you because they see, “Oh, she’s her own person”.

6. The artwork you wish was yours?
Michael Jackson’s Thriller cover. It always comes to mind when I think of the most classic pop album cover of all time. I don’t think anyone’s ever looked that cool with just a colour photo of themselves in a leisure suit. Classy, classic, and just oozing so much energy and sensuality.

7. If you could time travel, where would you choose to go?
I’d want to be in the room when George Michael was writing and producing Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, which is one of my favourite pop songs of all time. I know how those songs drop in for me, but when he was like, “You put the boom boom into my heart”, I would have loved to experience wherever that came from. I’m actually getting goosebumps right now! I feel George is present and has dropped in to say hello.

Debbie Gibson, with Go West, performs at Perth’s Astor Theatre on August 25, Sydney’s Enmore Theatre on August 28, Melbourne’s Palais Theatre on August 29, Adelaide’s The Gov on August 31, Hobart’s Odeon Theatre on September 2, and Brisbane’s Fortitude Music Hall on September 4.