Following the news of the tragic death of Danielle Moore we decided to publish online the feature we did with Danielle where she invited us into her wonderful home for issue 3 of the print mag. We send our love to all of Danielle's family and friends.

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From photos revisiting her childhood to transformational outfits, the Crazy P singer’s house is testament to her wildly colourful life…

As the magnetic voice of the fluid electronic group Crazy P, disco doyenne Danielle Moore has long been a siren call for ravers to find a home on the dancefloor – be it a local sweatbox or the festival beach feeling the afterglow of a sunrise set. Today, Moore calls Todmorden in West Yorkshire home. 

She’s invited us in after a four-week tour which saw the electronic outfit travel to New Zealand, Australia, and Bali with their riotous live set and amorphous brand of unbridled disco, house and pop. The group has since been focused on writing a new album and continues to release a series of curated projects with Leeds label 20/20 Vision, with expansive collaborators so far including Ashley Beedle and A Certain Ratio. She has also been spending more time in the Todmorden hills, writing and recording in a studio that’s built into the earth. Her “hobbit hole” is her salvation, a creative space with only a little table, CDJs and microphone. “As you get older, everything takes its toll a bit more,” she says. “This is my little slice of peace.”

Growing up in a working class northern town outside of Manchester, Danielle found her homecoming at age 18, when she was introduced to The Haçienda and scenes that would set life in motion. “I had my really seminal dancefloor moments there. I could dance how I wanted and feel so myself,” she says. She describes one night, eyeing the only other girl on the dancefloor moving as enthusiastically as herself. It was only when she went to jovially approach the other woman that she realised it was her own reflection in the room’s mirror.

It’s a funny but perceptive anecdote for how Danielle lives life, propelling herself forward with her own euphoric vision of the world. “I’m 52 this year, and I sometimes find myself up against the idea that I’m not ‘steady’ or ‘settled’,” she shares. “I’ve experienced more than a few raised eyebrows. But I know I’m so lucky with my life. Would I swap those travels and memories and music for anything? Would I fuck!” 

As with the heart-on-sleeve, arm hair-electrifying dance music she makes, Danielle shares the off-kilter items from her home that are steeped in personal stories.

Crazy P 7-inch

“We put out ‘If Life Could Be This Way’ over lockdown. It was the first 7-inch we ever released. We wrote and recorded it over one weekend. The sentiment is just… hope, really! We released it when people were really struggling. When we were really struggling. The cover image shows me as a kid, sitting on our avenue wall with lads I hung out with. I look cheeky and have a plaster on my knee – pretty standard. That photograph represents a lot of things to me, with one being my love of getting dirty. I’m so proud of the single, and I’m so proud of the image. It connects so many elements of my personal history together. The video we released with it is made up of all the band’s photographs over the last 25 years. Taking a trip through those memories helped us remember what we’ve achieved. I really struggled with lockdown – I worried about my existence. This became something tangible to believe in.”

Photo album

“I used to always carry a little camera with me. I love the shared ritual of photos – shooting, printing, getting the pictures out and holding them in your hand with cake and tea to laugh and cry together. I made this photo album for my husband. There are pictures in here from the very last year of the Garden Festival before it became Love International. That’s where we had our first kiss! In the photos you see how happy people are, our group of Brummies – to put it one way they’re having a really good time. I’ve got pictures of the live band touring Australia and New Zealand in there too, and our attempts at family holidays where it’s pissed down and everyone looks a bit grumpy. Precious.”

A photo at a favourite gig

“This is taken when everything changed for us. We were asked to do support for Faithless’ 2005/06 stadium tour. We did the SEC in Glasgow, Cardiff, the Manchester Arena, Brixton Academy for three nights, Hull ice rink [Arena]! We were so used to sweatboxes and tiny local venues, and yet here we were playing for 10,000 people a night. That’s when we really had to put on a performance. Someone sent me this photo in the post – they said they thought it captured my energy through the night. I don’t usually like photographs of myself, but I’m so engulfed in the moment. This might sound wanky, but I think it’s so cool! Especially when I know how nervous I was. This was transformational – it made me realise that you have to lose yourself on stage. Now I feel like I’m stepping into a character.” 

Stage outfits

“My stage outfits are always colourful and bright. I have a beautiful full-length kimono dress and jumpsuit by Michelle Walton who reworks authentic kimonos into gorgeous pieces of clothing. I wore this purple outfit for Glastonbury. Unfortunately, I jumped off a speaker and tore the arse out without any knickers on. Michelle fixed that! The kimono dress makes me feel so elegant, and the sleeves are broad and sweeping so I feel like I can fully command a stage. I also have this boiler suit by Mikkel, an urban artist from Leeds, which she spray painted with a massive love heart. On stage it glows, and it gives me confidence to shimmy around. I never used to dress up – as a kid, I was more comfortable in tracksuits. When I joined the band and found my stage character, I started experimenting with my makeup and outfits. It still makes me feel empowered. The fact that most of my outfits are either made by my friends or second-hand is really special to me too. I take a piece of them on stage with me.”

Mirrored disco hat 

“Brett Deardon is a plasterer by trade, and a wizard of this particular craft of reworking hats with mirrored glass. He wore this incredibly decorated welder’s hat to Homoelectric in Manchester. I bought an old postman’s hat and he decorated it with mirrored tiles. When the light hits the hat on stage it has this magic, dazzling effect. It’s a piece of furniture for me now. Grace Jones has one too!” 

Painting

“This is a painting called Goddesses. It’s also by Mikkel, who, in her 30s, had a stroke. She partially lost her sight and some speech. She had to retrain herself to walk and use her right arm. She said that because of the stroke she’d get these overwhelming visions and flashes of artistic inspiration. She did this exhibition at the Golden Lion Pub – the beating heart of Todmorden – where my husband and I fell in love with her work. She did these two paintings for the designer Paul Smith, but he rejected them because of the portrayal of women’s breasts. I had to have them! This painting is huge and beautiful, striking on the dark wall of our cottage. It’s showing women for all their shapes and sizes. This painting celebrates what I’m all about – imperfections.”

The Apollo, Manchester

“We used this photo for the cover of the first Crazy P album I was part of, ‘The Wicked is Music’. The Apollo is an iconic Manchester building, and back in the day it still had the old school lettering board. Our friend was managing the building and went up the ladder to change the letters to show our original name, Crazy Penis, for the shoot. It was a freezing day, but it was such a thrill to do. Our brilliant friend is no longer with us, so this photo is even more dear to me. The Apollo holds a lot of memories for me – I saw Prince there in 2004, six rows from the front with my sister.”

Stuffed pheasant

“I used to love this Instagram page called ‘Badly Stuffed Animals’. I bought this stuffed pheasant from a stall in Todmorden market. Every morning I say ‘hello’ and ‘how are ya?’ to my pheasant. I love that it has a second life with me! I was vegetarian for about 30 years – but not anymore – and yet I’ve always had this fascination with birds and feathers. I worked with an incredible costume designer named Natasha Lawes, who used everything and anything for costumes in music videos, the National Ballet, and horror films. She would buy roadkill and animal by-products. She made me a headdress about 15 years ago from the wings of a dead bird. I think it’s brilliant.”

Cushion

“My friend Louise Gardiner is a talented embroidery artist and designer, who made this beautiful cushion to mark 100 years of the Suffragettes. She’s done so much work with survivors of domestic violence, women with mental health issues, and refugees. I respect her so much. It’s a piece of art that reminds me how hard women fought for and continue to fight for our equality. Every now and again, when I’m feeling a little bit low, powerless or vulnerable, I give the cushion a hug. I think of the collective struggle. This has pride of place in my front room.” 

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This article first appeared in issue 3 of Disco Pogo.