It’s Peter Andre... but not as we know him. The busy TV and pop star talks to Tim Hughes about his change of direction

Peter Andre has grown up. Forget all those images of the Aussie hunk showing off his trademark abs while singing chirpy pop songs.

These days you are more likely to find him in a sharp suit, singing retro ballads like an Antipodean Frank Sinatra.

Yes, Peter Andre has turned crooner.

Like Rod Stewart, Bryan Ferry, Robbie Williams and Will Young before him, our Pete has ditched the singlet and gone all lounge lizard on us. And he’s joined by a 10-piece band.

“I grew up with jazz and blues and absolutely love it,” he says excitedly.

“It’s weird that when writing my albums most of the stuff has been poppy, but the stuff I listen to is very different. I love classic songs – especially rock & roll and real rhythm and blues.

“I’m loving the crooning stuff more than what I was doing before. It used to be about image, but now it’s about having fun with the crowd.”

“My new songs are jazzy, rocky and all original; I’m not doing covers.

“If you like the blues, you’ve got to come along.”

Fans get a chance to hear the 41-year-old TV star’s new fare when he plays Oxford’s New Theatre next Thursday – his first gig in two years.

I caught up with Britain’s favourite single dad while he took a break from filming a show with comic TV hosts Ant and Dec.

“I’ve been doing Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway,” he says. “It’s great fun.”

No stranger to the box with his own reality show Peter Andre: My Life, and as co-presenter on Sunday Scoop, he now hosts his own Peter Andre’s 60 Minute Makeover. And then there’s that advert for Iceland (the shop, of course, not the country). But, he insists, he is still first and foremost a singer. “Things are going really well,” he says. “It’s fantastic I’m still here after all these years.

“It’s great going from music to TV and back again. It’s like doing it the old-fashioned way. When I did drama at school, we were never allowed just to sing. We had to do some acting as well. We tried to do all different things and I never realised how it would all come into use.

“I love being on stage,” he goes on. “It’s what I like doing most. It’s like being an artist and drawing or painting something and feeling you are getting it right, or delivering a speech and knowing you are doing a great job. It’s a good feeling.”

Since his painfully public break-up from ex-wife Katie Price, Peter has won a place in fans’ hearts for his much-vaunted fatherhood skills.

Earlier this year he was voted the nation’s favourite celebrity dad, and he professes fatherhood is still his main calling – overshadowing even his million-record selling music career.

As well as Junior and Princess Tiaamii, his children with Price, he and his fiancée, medical student Emily MacDonagh, are now the proud dad of baby Amelia. Peter has also looked after Price’s son Harvey as his own.

Peter remains reluctant to discuss anything to do with his ex, but says he is very happy indeed with Emily, whom he met after her doctor father removed his kidney stones.

And he is more than happy to discuss the highs and lows of parenting “Every single parent knows that they have to become the mum and dad. They have to become both parents and end up doing a lot more.

“It’s a weird situation. It’s not ideal but when you are in it, you adapt. I don’t think i am a better parent than others, I just put them first. We learn from our past – but it’s fun too.”

So how were his own parents? “They were very strict,” he says. “But they brought us up well and are close to our hearts.”

He said his parents, who were born in Cyprus, moved to England, where Peter and his five siblings were born, and then moved to Australia, where they still live.

“They are going to be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary,” he chuckles, with admiration.

“They were worried about me being in the music industry because of drugs,” he goes on. “They couldn’t see how anyone in it could lead a clean life. but even in my 20s, when I partied hard and hung out in clubs all the time, I never did drugs. And they are really proud. I’ve done well in Australia too.”

He admits that most of those buying tickets for his shows are likely to be female. “It’s really flattering,” he says, almost coyly. “I don’t think they are looking at you in an attractive way though, more in a familiar way. It’s very different.”

And while Peter has promised a night of new music, he has promised fans of old, that they can still bank on hearing 90s hits Mysterious Girl and Flava, as well as tunes from previous albums Revelation, Accelerate and Angels and Demons.

“The new songs are amazing, but I’m going to throw in a few classics too, and, of course play the old ones – though Mysterious Girl is very different when played by a 10-piece band. So make sure you get there – you’re going to have a great time!”

CHECK IT OUT
Peter Andre plays the New Theatre, Oxford, next Thursday. Tickets from atgtickets.com priced £30.40 - £79.90 plus £2.85 transaction fee

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