The creator of The Rocky Horror Picture Show says yes, the show made him famous but no, it's not his greatest success.
When you've been reporting for a long time, you still get firsts. Having an interviewee burst into spontaneous song. Meeting someone photographed by Lord Byron. Getting an autograph from the original Riff Raff.
The tale of firsts started when we drove up the stone-chipped driveway of Richard O'Brien's house. Past the gate house, we parked by the barn house, and then walked up to the main house.
Up the stairs and towards the open door, where O'Brien greeted us with open arms, in women's clothing and ugg boots, into his dining room, where he was nursing a glass of wine from a bottle of Jacob Creek Shiraz Cabernet.
Behind him was a commercial and vertical drinks fridge shelved with lines of canned and alcoholic drinks.
It's Party Time with Richard O'Brien, read the pink flyer advertising his latest gig, next year. Dozens of them were on his wooden dining table - next to the Park Drive tobacco - and the picture on the flyer was of O'Brien holding a glass, and sitting with his legs crossed in heels, a white mini skirt, and pearls.
Cleverly, the bubbles cascading from the glass formed hearts, music notes, and the number 70 - a subtle message that O'Brien's birthday (March 25) is the reason for the March 17 show. Although instead of gifts, he is giving the profits to the Starship Foundation.
He is transgender and says it's not by choice.
"It's a hand you're dealt. It's a curse, actually. And what you've to do is find a way through and become happy with yourself. Otherwise you go mad, that's my feeling. I'm a deeply moral person, kind person."
O'Brien, creator of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, is living in the Katikati area, and has been talking about Rocky for 30-plus years, but can imagine a life without it.
"Of course I can," he says. "Absolutely. I've often thought about it and yes, it was terribly important and opened up all sorts of doors and changed things, but I'm me and I love writing songs anyway. I don't see myself as successful in that sense. My success comes out in having lots of lovely friends and lots of lovely children."
O'Brien says Rocky, which has the longest-running theatrical release in film history, does not define him.
"What defines me is my work and Rocky is part of that. It is hard to top it because it is phenomenally its own self. It is a strange kind of beast," he muses.
Rocky is a combination of adolescence, a collection of comics and pop art and rock and roll, B-movies and sci-fi.
"All those things that we weren't supposed to like and you weren't supposed to do."
Despite becoming a worldwide phenomenon, he did not see success coming, and never gets sick of watching his audience's reactions.
"It had a great director, Jim Sharman, and a great cast. I mean, Tim Curry was fantastic. I often think if Tim hadn't been playing Frank whether it would have had the success."
Did he make a lot of money?
"Thankfully no. Unlike a lot of shows that do blockbuster biz, something that turns somebody from nothing into a multi-millionaire, Rocky was small but incremental and it kept me sane because I think, in the first two or three years of Rocky, if lots of money had come my way, I think I might have fallen by the wayside.
"Thankfully I had to make sure I could pay the taxman. I have a mortgage on my house in London, I have to watch it just like everyone else."
O'Brien was raised in Tauranga when his English father came to New Zealand to become a sheep farmer in 1952. He spent his teens and early 20s in Tauranga and Hamilton farming and hairdressing, before leaving for the UK in 1964.
Controversy surrounded his citizenship last year when an application was declined because he did not fit immigration criteria. It was eventually granted and he got his citizenship on Wednesday.
After years of splitting himself between New Zealand and the UK, he is settled.
"I love Tauranga, I love New Zealand. I can't tell you how wonderful it is (to get my citizenship) because it's wonderful to belong. I always thought I was a Kiwi and flew the flag in England, I was a famous Kiwi. You can't claim me as a famous son and then say I can't belong."
Derek Jacombs, friend and singer/guitarist of blues band Kokomo, says as well as being a delight and one of the loveliest people he's met, our city is "richer for having Richard". O'Brien's theatre, music and film experience - he was on stage in Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair, and Little Shop of Horrors in England - was "absolutely unique" in the Bay.
"That breadth of experience and knowledge is just way above anyone you are likely to meet here."
O'Brien's brother, Rob Smith, calls him "one of the brilliant ones", with an unending store of ideas for songs. O'Brien's fame crept up on him over the years and while one of the things he most desired was to have an international hit, Smith had reminded him that few in the Western world wouldn't have heard of The Time Warp.
O'Brien likes to throw parties, and his house, which is mostly white and filled with quirky art, was built for that purpose.
"We have a band at the end (of the verandah) and a barbie over here, it's fab. I like having people over and doing Sunday lunches."
His property, once a "windswept, dissolute paddock" has been transformed over the past two years.
"We put the white posts around and immediately it's like putting a picture frame around a paddock and ... it looked like a million dollars. Heavy white posts makes it look like Kentucky, stud horses and things."
What does he do on a day-to-day basis?
"I do voice-overs. I play the father in Phinas and Ferb (Disney) cartoon series. I sing in small venues and pubs in London. I come to New Zealand and come back. In London I lock the front door, I love being isolated in my own little place."
Would he put Rocky on in Tauranga?
"It's difficult because there's a company that looks after the rights of Rocky and when you give a licence to someone, there's a chap in Australia called Tim Lawson, who bought it last year and the licence still holds. While it holds, you can't give licences to other people in his territory. It's not cheap putting on a good show and you do have to get your money back."
He has three children, Linus, almost 40, Joshua, 27, and Amelia, 24 and a grandson, Elvis, 4.
"I loved turning 40," he muses, before bursting into spontaneous song. "I picked up a glass on my 40th and went 'I'm entitled, I'm 40 years of age so I'm entitled'. I made a pledge to grow old distastefully."
Is it working?
"Yes!
"I think that life, if you have a circular lawn and you stuck a stake in the middle and tied a rope to a lawn mower and gassed it up and sent it off, that first circle, that's your first year of life. As the rope shortens the years just do that," he says, ringing his finger in a circular motion. "I think that's my metaphor or analogy for life."
His greatest success in life is his children.
"The greatest gift you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return," he sings. "To be on your deathbed and no one knows you and you're lonely, gained all the money and power in the ... world and you're just left and nobody wants to know you, that's failure.
"But to have a room full of love around and friends, that's success, it has to be."