From Livingston in West Lothian to the concert arenas of the world, the rise of David John Cicero into the pop charts was swift.
A fan of synthpop and dance music, Cicero began writing songs and making music in his bedroom, aided by advancements in technology such as affordable samplers and sequencing software. Following a PET SHOP BOYS concert in 1989, he managed to get a demo tape to the duo.
Before two could be divided by zero, Cicero was offered a record deal with Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe’s new record label Spaghetti Records imprint which was being set up via Polydor Records.
Although the excellent debut single for both Cicero and Spaghetti Records ‘Heaven Must Have Sent You Back To Me’ failed to chart, it brought the young photogenic Scot to the attention of radio programmers and press. So when his PET SHOP BOYS produced second single ‘Love Is Everywhere’ was released in late 1991, it eventually reached No19 in the UK charts.
The album ‘Future Boy’ and ‘Live For Today’, a wonderfully cinematic contribution to the Oscar nominated film ‘The Crying Game’ followed, but then record company politics intervened and contributed to a stall in momentum.
Although later, there was a UK tour supporting TAKE THAT plus the independently issued singles ‘Summertime’ and a cover of SOFT CELL’s ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’, as the new millennium loomed, Cicero opted to disappear from public view.
But now in 2019, as his former mentor Neil Tennant used to say when he was Assistant Editor of Smash Hits, Cicero is “Back-back-BACK!”.
With the release of his appropriately titled new single ‘Turned Around’, Cicero kindly spoke about his album ‘Future Boy’, working with PET SHOP BOYS, briefly being a pop pin-up and his return to music…
At a time when affordable electronic music technology was making acid house and techno a cultural reality, you opted to do pop songs, so who were your main influences in that respect?
I was going to clubs in my late teens and listening to house music like ‘Jack Your Body’ and ‘House Nation’ the early stuff and thinking “wow I want to do that”. When moving to Livingston when I was 17, the Scottish radio was full of RUNRIG, HIPSWAY, DEACON BLUE etc, mostly rock pop stuff. Nobody really from Scotland at that time was playing electronic music, in the mainstream anyway.
The club I went to called ‘Melvilles’ at the time (now a church lol) was playing all types of music including HI-NRG like “I was a male stripper in a go go bar” (not me, that was the name of the song ?) and tracks like “Boom Boom, let’s go back to my room” and I loved them. It was the energy they gave off on the dancefloor, just like house music which was uplifting, almost trance like. They also played a lot of electronic bands like OMD, PSB and VISAGE.
Can you remember your first synth or keyboard? What was it like to use?
The first keyboard was a small Casio which had built-in speakers and drums etc, not that great at sounds but you could play about with them to make better ones. It did not have any phono outputs, so I had to tape a microphone to its speaker when doing my early gigs.
What was your set-up when you were producing the demos that would eventually become ‘Future Boy’?
By the time I was working on ‘Future Boy’, I had my Korg T3 and an Akai sequencer, an Akai sampler and a rack mount synth which was by Roland.
It was a long process when writing tunes as you could not copy and paste stuff, it was all step-sequenced so you had to build the tracks part by part which was pain staking at the time.
I also had an old Atari monitor when moving on to Cubase later which was so much better.
How did you come to the attention of PET SHOP BOYS?
They were playing at the SECC in Glasgow, I remember playing ‘Please’ constantly and loved every song. I carried my demo tape with me everywhere I went. We were listening in the car going to the gig and whilst waiting in the venue, my friend Ali bumped into Pete who was their PA at the time (later to be my manager) and said “you’ve got to listen to this, it’s similar to the PET SHOP BOYS!”.
At the time, I had only written ‘Love Is Everywhere’, ‘Heaven’ and ‘Cloud 9’. We were invited to meet them after the show and it was awesome. A month later Pete called me and said “you better start working on an album, the boys want you down in London”, the rest is history.
‘Heaven Must Have Sent You Back To Me’ was a fine debut single in anyone’s books, exactly what one would imagine Spaghetti Records to be about?
Yes Neil and Chris loved ‘Heaven’ and wanted it out first. Spaghetti Records was something they both created at the time to go with the Italian connection surname that I had. They later added more artists to the label.
You’re best known for your hit ‘Love Is Everywhere’ which looking back now, is quite a bizarre song sounding like THE PROCLAIMERS meeting PET SHOP BOYS and OMD with bagpipes and The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo thrown in for good measure… how did this come together in your head and then in the studio?
Haha, yes there is quite a mixture of styles in that tune. I always wanted it to be a Scottish anthem sounding tune and had a crap bagpipe sample playing the main part, but it all just worked. When doing my early gigs, it was the song that got everyone pumped and went down rather well.
When in the studio with the boys, they wanted real bagpipes so we got some guys in to play it, but the bagpipes needed tuning to the correct key to fit the track. Neil also decided to add his backing vocals to it which lifted the chorus to another level. Thinking back, it was all experiments which the boys had fun being involved in.
Had it been the intention for PET SHOP BOYS to be involved in the production of ‘Love Is Everywhere’?
Yes from the get go, it was probably one of the first we started working on in the studio when putting together ‘Future Boy’.
With it, you became a pop pin-up with a ‘Smash Hits’ front cover, how did you find the adulation and also being on TV?
I loved every minute of it; I remember rushing to the newsagents to buy a copy when I was told I was in a magazine.
You have to love it, it’s all about you and if you don’t like it, why are you doing it? Being on TV was amazing too and at the time I always wanted to be on ‘Top Of The Pops’, I was on it but only a few seconds of the video to ‘Love is Everywhere’ as it was the highest climber that week. I was told I was going on the show the following week, but later that week we were told that Michael Jackson was releasing a bloody 10 minute video which they decided to premiere on the show instead!
‘That Loving Feeling’ was also produced by PET SHOP BOYS, what was it like working with them? Are there any funny stories you can recall?
Yes let me get it straight, these boys are so talented, the ideas at the time were flowing and me, being young and naïve, did not respect that as much as I do now. They were the biggest names in the pop industry and they were producing some of my songs! Don’t get me wrong, I was loving every moment of it and thought it was amazing and looking back now it all seems like a dream.
Chris was the joker, he would just come out with some random stuff which would get us all laughing; Neil too, I loved it when he would go off on one about some of the artists at the time in the charts who he thought were not deserving (I will not mention any names).
It was a shame ‘That Loving Feeling’ didn’t hit the same heights as ‘Love Is Everywhere’, why do you think that might have been?
It was all down to distribution at the time, you’ve got to remember we did not have social media to help push sales. Even though Spaghetti was my label, Polydor were the main backing / distributors and were not getting the records out to all the shops in time. This was really out of Chris and Neil’s control and should have been handled better by Polydor.
My bother and others that were contacting me were saying the stores were not stocking it or were waiting on stock coming in. At the time, you needed to sell a lot of records to even get into the Top 100 and I just missed the Top 40 which was a bummer but it never stopped me carrying on.
‘My Middle Class Life’ had an air of VISAGE about it?
Did it? *laughs*
I do like VISAGE. That was written when I was a waiter back in the days of getting sh*t from customers. I would go into my staff room and write it out on a napkin. A few songs were written there.
There is some great brassy freeform synth playing on the rugged album closer ‘Future Generations’, an art which had sort of disappeared during those dance years?
That was a track written when I was coming down to London and seeing all the homeless / red light areas which I never experienced back home. We wanted the album to have an emotional ending to it, inspired by ‘The Great Gig In The Sky’ by PINK FLOYD, the female vocals are stunning… I wanted that similar vocal effect at the end of my tune.
The excellent electro instrumental ‘Sonic Malfunction’ was a last minute addition to ‘Future Boy’, why had it felt necessary to add further tracks?
I did a lot of instrumental tracks too back in the day, it was one of those songs that Neil and Chris liked and wanted to add it to the album. (Check out my YouTube page for the new mix I did). They wanted to also show I suppose, the other side of Cicero which is not always pop. We did not want to overdo the album with instrumentals… we were keeping them for the B sides ?
On B-sides like ‘Mind The Gap’, ‘Splatt’ and ‘Jungilism’, you were able to let your more clubby instincts run wild?
Yep, again it was all about showing another part of Cicero and it was great having full control to experiment with songs like that.
We had a great laugh making them and loved playing with new technology in the studio.
How do you look back on the ‘Future Boy’ album? Which were your own favourite tracks?
I still think its timeless, I think it’s one of those albums that still sounds like some of the songs that are out there today, hell I may have even influenced them in some way ?
I don’t have any faves, I like them all but ‘Then’ was the one that I loved to listen to on repeat. Yes I sometimes still listen to it for inspiration. Is it bad to be a fan of your own music? If you’re not a fan of your own music why the hell are you doing it then!
‘Live For Today’, your contribution to the PET SHOP BOYS produced soundtrack to ‘The Crying Game’ is considered to be your best song; with that soulful counterpoint from Sylvia Mason-James, was this indicative of the direction you would have gone in for the second album?
Yes probably, we were going in a more orchestrated feel at the time but I was under no impression to change my music drastically compared to ‘Future Boy’
Some perceived you as a PET SHOP BOYS side-project… in hindsight, do you think the association helped or hindered you? Is there anything you’d have done differently?
Hey, I was their prodigy, they found me and I found them, it’s all about fate. I may have made it without the lads, but having them help me and to be part of it was something I would never change.
You also supported TAKE THAT on tour. Looking back, was it the right fit as it didn’t appear to revive your fortunes? How did you find the experience overall for you?
I loved being on tour with the boys, we were good friends and thought it would be a good surprise having me part of the show, we talked about it way back before they became famous. It was never a plan to revive my career but the response I got was overwhelming from the fans.
In 1996 you released a cover of SOFT CELL’s ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’? What is it about that song for you personally which you loved?
It was one of those songs when I first listened to it that made me relate to it a bit, but I always thought it would be a good dance tune.
Publically, it looked like you’d gone under the radar after that, what happened then?
I was and still am making music, I just wanted a break from it all. I went through quite a low time which I will not get into after my pop career. Later my lovely daughter was born who was 11 weeks premature. This was worrying times as she was in the hospital for a long time when she was first born so I stopped doing music until she was older.
I started doing music with a DJ friend of mine Paul Mendez, writing trance tunes under the name JACOB & MENDEZ. I also have a few albums out under the name THE EVENT which tracks have appeared on some independent films. I was always writing, always going on and never giving up.
You’re now back with a new single ‘Turned Around’ and it’s like you’ve never been away. What made you feel this was the right time to make a return to music?
I had released a couple of songs prior to this called ‘Face This World Alone’ and ‘Wish’, but was getting a lot of people asking when I was going to sing again. I wanted to put a song together that meant something to me and what a lot of others could relate to. I just wanted everyone to know I was back, but not really been away.
Is the current environment where an artist has more control over their music with regards self-releasing more suited to your ethos?
It’s a great time for independent artist who can now more easily set up their own label. I love having full control now, most artists if you ask them would love that, you can express your true music that way, it’s not controlled and it’s not all about making money like most big named record companies are only after these days. Just listen to the amount of sh*t that is out there.
How do you feel about the music industry today compared with back then?
Don’t get me started, it sucks, we are controlled into having to listen to what they decide is good. Everyone is expected to follow like sheep and listen to the same type of music as everyone else. Back in the 90s, music was so uplifting, nowadays it’s all so depressing. It’s like they want us all to be depressed. They control the big radio stations now and any small independent band does not have a chance… unless you get signed to them.
Photo by Neil McDade
You recently gave your first live performance for many years in aid of MacMillan. How does it feel to be playing live again?
It was one of the best nights of my life. It was something I planned a few years ago after doing a remake of ‘Cloud 9’. All of my original material was done on floppy drives, so I had to reprogramme everything from scratch for the live show.
The response and feedback has been amazing. It’s given me the buzz again and you never know, I may just have to do another.
So what’s next for you then, your hopes or fears?
I may do some more live gigs. I am now working on an album, it’s not ‘Future Boy 2’ but it’s still going to have that Cicero feel to it with a more up to date cutting edge sound. Back in the 90s, we were limited to technology but we made it sound the best we could back then. The new album may not be out until later next year ‘cause I want to take my time to make sure I am happy with it first and hopefully you are too.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to David Cicero
‘Turned Around’ is available via the usual digital platforms
SOMEONE WHO ISN’T ME are the feisty Greek threesome of Marilena Orfanou, Maria Hatzakou and Gina Dimakopoulou.
Releasing their debut album ‘Dance With You’ on Amour Records, the trio swear by analogue sounds, toy synths, chaotic guitars, fake strings, and off-beat rhythms complimented by deep voices in English and Greek.
The new single ‘Pinku’ comes over an interesting snarly mix of TR/ST and KITE crossed with NEW ORDER. Meanwhile, its superb visual presentation directed by Alkistis Terzi features striking time freeze effect portraits of five Biblical female figures Jezebel, Lilith, the Virgin Mary, Salome and Delilah.
Kindred spirits to fellow Hellelectro exponents MARSHEAUX, SARAH P. and KID MOXIE, SOMEONE WHO ISN’T ME have particularly impressed with their striking video presentations, particularly for their most recent single ‘Pinku’ and the award winning ‘Gomenaki’.
SOMEONE WHO ISN’T ME kindly talked to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about their artistic motivations and ideals…
The three of you have quite distinct musical backgrounds, so how did the idea of making music together come about?
Marilena and Gina have been on the Athens Music scene for years. Gina on the grunge side as she is the guitarist of KATRIN THE THRILL; Marilena on the pop – electronic side and she formed BERLIN BRIDES with Natasha Giannaraki. They were also high school friends and they met up as adults again after many years through the music scene. Marilena had this dream of creating a pop band, but with distinctive guitar riffs. And Gina was open to new music genres.
Maria started learning the drums much later. She passed by a music school one day and with Marilena’s encouragement went in and enrolled in drum classes. She and Marilena had always dreamed of creating a band together.
Later on Marilena was commissioned to write the soundtrack of A Tsangari’s ‘Chevalier’ (which won the Best Feature Award at the BFI London Film Festival) and invited Maria and Gina to experiment. The music didn’t make it into the film, except for the end titles song ‘Never Find It’, but that was the beginning of the band. Many of the songs that appear in ‘Dance With You’ were written for this soundtrack as instrumental pieces.
Then Marilena was commissioned by the French Institute in Athens to write the OST for a silent Greek Film titled ‘Astero’ and invited Maria and Gina to perform it live. That was the first live gig of the band.
With regards band dynamics, how do the influences of the three of you combine and clash?
It’s actually quite an easy and natural process. We are so well tuned with each other on our aesthetics. Marilena is the brain of the band. She writes the music and the lyrics. She then invites Maria and Gina to jam, experiment and add elements to the songs. We have a tiny studio (San Marco SWIM studio) in the centre of Athens where the magic happens.
Your latest single ‘Pinku’ is a wonderful combination of quite different styles, there’s techno, indie and classical!
Yes it’s true. We are quite excessive and melodramatic in our music. Marilena had classical studies in Music and Composition plus she is also very inspired by soundtracks and electronic and techno music. Our references come from Debussy to Delia Derbyshire to PET SHOP BOYS to PJ Harvey. We actually recorded live strings for ‘Pinku’. These elements exist in our music a lot.
‘Pinku’ comes with a striking video, what was the inspiration?
The video exists as an art piece as well, entitled ‘Survive in My Sex’. It is created by the amazing Photographer and DoP, Alkisti Terzi and it consists of 14000 still photos. When we saw the image, we immediately thought of ‘Pinku’ as a music background. The song talks about a long lost love affair between two women and the different female biblical faces on the film who look at you in the eye in these intense moments were the perfect visualization of this love affair.
So you like toy synths, are there any particular ones?
Yes we love a little Casio synth made for children, the Stylophone, an 80s Yamaha and the Solina synth.
Your album opens with the ‘Dance With You’ title song. In your opinion, how important is dance as an emotional expression in life?
Very important, we would say. Marilena (aka Loo) and Gina also work as DJs on the Athens scene and they make people dance. Music is in our heads 24/7. We have to let the energy out and communicate it. We would suffocate otherwise. ‘Dance With You’ is a dance pop song but the lyrics are about love, crying and suffering. You just dance it out!
‘Girl’s On Fire’ has a very unorthodox construction?
Yes it does. We are always flirting with R ‘n’ B which we love. This one was originally written as an instrumental piece for a theatre play (‘Lulu’ directed by D Tampassi) where we played the music live on each performance. It had so much body energy when we played it. It was a fiery one. Marilena had the image of a Girl on Fire. She collaborated with Kate Adams (who is theatre maker) on the lyrics.
You are not afraid to produce instrumentals, like ‘Night Flight’ and ‘Strange’, plus even ‘Pinku’ is offered as an instrumental bonus. So how do you decide that a composition remains without a vocal and what can you get from an instrumental that you can’t with a song?
We love instrumentals and we will keep on writing them. It’s like the soundtrack in our heads. When you don’t have something to say anymore and how to express your feelings with lyrics, you can do it easily just writing music! ‘Strange’ is our most melodramatic theme and ‘Night Flight’ the lighter one; the two opposites.
Actually many songs exist first as instrumentals and at the very last minute we might add vocals. ‘Pinku’ existed as an instrumental for a long time. That’s how we used to play it at our gigs. The night before we sent it for final Mastering, Marilena stayed up at the studio all night and wrote the lyrics and the vocal arrangement. We all listened to it and we decided it was worth the extra work to add the voice.
How do you decide whether to sing in Greek or English?
Well to be honest our first instinct is to write in English. There is a lightness and a distance writing in a different language than your own. We love writing in Greek as well, but the words that come are always very simple and repetitive. We have a new song that will be featured in our second album, called ‘All Gone’ which combines both languages, English and Greek.
The video for your debut single ‘Gomenaki’ won an award, are you proud that you have been able to make an important existential statement through your art?
Yes, we definitely are. The IndieMemphis award was quite a surprise to us. I have to say though that the credit goes to Alkis Papastathopoulos who wrote the script and directed the music video. He listened to the song once and the next day he came up with this brilliant script. Maria produced it. Our main goal was to make a “different” high school indie drama and I think we succeeded. Our tagline says it all: A femme for femme love story that challenges the classic high school film narrative and takes revenge on toxic masculinity.
Music is politics is life? Please discuss?
The personal is political, of course. This is deeply rooted in us in our everyday life and as artists; we have to communicate it, through our music, through our films, through our voice and actions. We cannot close our eyes and stay untouched by the sudden turn to conservatism, fascism and decay that surrounds us not only in Greece but worldwide. We need to raise our voices.
What is next for SOMEONE WHO ISN’T ME?
Well we already have all the songs of our second album ready. It’s more dark and downtempo in a way. We will play at Pop Kultur in Berlin this August and we are also writing music for two short films and we will be writing the soundtrack of a TV series that Maria and Alkis Papastathopoulos are currently developing. We would also like to play in more festivals abroad.
We also have three more music videos in development, always collaborating with directors we love and admire.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to SOMEONE WHO ISN’T ME
‘Dance With You’ is released as a digital album by Amour Records, available via the usual online outlets
Rob Dean is best known as a member of the classic quintet line-up of JAPAN with David Sylvian, Mick Karn, Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri which acted as the blueprint for DURAN DURAN.
Hackney-born Dean had been recruited by the four Catford boys via an advert in Melody Maker. Although he had already left the band by the time of their wider breakthrough in Autumn 1981, his six-string made a prominent contribution to some of the band’s best known singles like ‘Life In Tokyo’, ‘Quiet Life’ and ‘I Second That Emotion’. Dean was one of the first exponents of the EBow, a battery-powered hand-held monophonic electronic device which produced a powerful infinite sustain that was rich in harmonics.
It therefore allowed for a variety of sounds on a guitar not playable using traditional strumming or picking techniques; other users of the EBow included Bill Nelson, The Edge, Stuart Adamson, Paul Reynolds and Wayne Hussey.
Featuring on four of JAPAN’s five studio albums, Dean had found himself marginalised by David Sylvian’s artistic pursuit of a more minimalist keyboard based sound during the recording sessions for his final record with them, ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’, resulting in him appearing on just four tracks.
After JAPAN, Dean worked with Gary Numan, Sinéad O’Connor and ABC while he was also formed the Australian connected bands ILLUSTRATED MAN and THE SLOW CLUB. Now resident in Costa Rica, the guitarist kindly chatted at length about his time in JAPAN and his return to music with a brand new project LIGHT OF DAY…
Much had been made of your resemblance to Sylvain Sylvain, had you actually been a NEW YORK DOLLS fan?
The simple answer is no. I remember seeing them on ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ and thinking how they were fun to watch and decidedly trashy, but it didn’t make me want to rush out and buy their album or go and see them live. The truth is my hair (in those days at least!) was naturally very curly and so when I grew it long, which was ultimately a pre-requisite for being part of JAPAN really, obviously it had a Bolan / Sylvain look. The make-up obviously helped promote this further.
As time went on, I appreciated them a bit more. I remember I was once at Max’s Kansas City in NYC chatting with the club’s co-owner and the subject of Sylvain came up. She said he was usually around somewhere. I thought no more about it and as I was outside the club about to leave, she emerged dragging a very drunk individual by his jacket sleeve. It was Sylvain Sylvain – she wanted so desperately for him to meet me. I’m guessing he didn’t remember our encounter!
How comfortable were you with the early look of JAPAN and being in the public eye with it?
I was fine with it. JAPAN were my first band really and therefore it was easy to get caught up in the whole image thing (we had a record deal! we played gigs!). Where I was least happy was traveling on a bus or the tube to a rehearsal or business meeting where I became (understandably) self-conscious about it. It was ok for the others, they all lived close to each other and travelled together all the time, usually in Rich’s small car, but I lived on the other side of London and so it was a bit more awkward.
When JAPAN scored their initial success in Japan with the ‘Adolescent Sex’ album and went from playing pubs in Britain to the Budokan in Tokyo, how did you find having to deal with screaming girls at your shows?
You can’t really explain the buzz of that initial reception getting off that plane in Tokyo for the first time and being greeted by a mob of screaming fans. Leaving the hotel discreetly by back exits, bodyguards accompanying you everywhere on shopping excursions…
It was nuts really, decidedly unreal. The first night we were invited by our promoter Mr Udo to see Linda Ronstadt at the Budokan. No sooner had we entered the vast auditorium, Ms Ronstadt and band already in full swing, than by our presence alone we unwittingly had caused a mini-riot and were forced to leave in order for the concert to continue.
As far as our own shows went, although somewhat otherworldly to be exchanging a couple of hundred people at the Marquee club for two 10,000 seat sold out shows at the Budokan, it never really felt that it was anything but deserved. By the end of the first tour we had become quite blasé about the whole experience. It was a huge confidence builder though.
Is it true that wrestler Kendo Nagasaki was involved in some rather bizarre UK promotion of that album?
Yes, he was hired to promote the first album, delivering it by hand to all the disc jockeys and record promoters in his full wrestler’s regalia. All that sort of guff was entirely out of our hands as was the poster campaign and the promotional phallic cardboard sword with a huge erect penis on the reverse!
What were the pros and cons of having someone like Simon Napier-Bell as a manager?
The pros? I’m not sure in hindsight. He was clearly an old school manager with all the baggage that that comes with. Initially I think we felt that having a manager with such a reputation could only be a good thing and we were so green then that we just rode along with it all and trusted that he had our own interests at heart.
The blatant Far Eastern connotations, all of that was out of our control really. We trusted that it was what needed to be done to get us noticed and recognised. Which we certainly were but perhaps initially not in the way we had hoped. All of the press hated any act being thrust down their throats and so having our painted faces and lewd posters plastered all over London unquestionably did more harm than good, particularly in the punk era! I don’t think for one moment we were embarrassed by it however, not then anyway. The T-shirts with the band name spelled out with people and animals f***ing did take it a bit too far though…
The other thing that has lingered with me and possibly now I feel more regrettable than the rest was the blatant lies, the fabrications about the band that placed us in a position that was virtually impossible to get out of. The ‘Most Beautiful Man in the World’ tag on David Sylvian which had no founding in reality and was created purely to put us on the pages of The Sun newspaper for example; something to be proud of? No, I don’t think so. For a few years that promotion machine was in fabrication overdrive and ultimately it comes down to one person, Simon Napier-Bell…
JAPAN’s first major tour was opening for BLUE OYSTER CULT in 1978, do you have any amusing memories of it, as the audiences were said to be quite hostile?
We had supported on a smaller yet no less incongruous Uni tour before that with Jim Capaldi’s band which included Alan Spenner and Neil Hubbard whose work as sidemen we would come to admire later on, not to mention the Kokomo singers, who appear on the recorded version of ‘European Son’. As to BOC, it was our first time playing on the larger theatrical stages and our largest audiences so far, so we certainly looked forward to that. Although we weren’t playing to anything close to our own audiences, the only time they got really hostile and vocal was when we played the song ‘Suburban Berlin’.
As the tour continued, David encouraged us to lengthen the instrumental section and bring it down almost to a whisper, (which was the crowd’s opportunity to loudly voice their displeasure with us, the longer the better, which they indeed did do), before the song exploded into a huge round of final refrains.
On the last night of the tour, the road crew used that hushed silence and the explosive end to unleash all of the pyrotechnics and fireworks that they had remaining from the tour. All at once! Consequently we were all completely covered in ash, not to mention virtually deaf from the explosives. The other thing I remember was getting in the hotel lift with Buck Dharma for the first time and realizing that the lead guitarist of BOC was essentially a midget. Fond memories…
‘The Tenant’ instrumental that closed the ‘Obscure Alternatives’ album was a pivotal point in JAPAN changing their sound and saw you using an EBow for possibly the first time?
No it wasn’t an EBow; I don’t think they were actually available or that I was even aware of their existence at that point. But I did want a very Fripp-like thick sustained sound. We had been listening particularly to the ‘Heroes’ album then and so he was a strong and obvious influence on my playing moving forward.
What was it like to record ‘Life In Tokyo’ with Giorgio Moroder in Los Angeles as it was a radical new direction for JAPAN at the time?
We were all fans of the ‘Midnight Express’ film and soundtrack, which had just won Giorgio Moroder an Oscar, so the notion of flying to LA to record with him was an exciting one. I personally also really liked the work he had been doing with Donna Summer too. Combined with the heavy presence of KRAFTWERK and YMO in our album collections, it felt like the next logical step and we were banking on it causing us to break through in the pop market, which if we were to stay with our current record company, Hansa we would need to do.
So we flew over for about 5 days staying at the Beverly Hilton, no less. The song started life as an idea on a cassette that Giorgio had thought of using for the Jodie Foster movie ‘Foxes’, which David had fashioned quickly into a song. In the studio, Giorgio had a drumkit set-up with ‘his’ sound and in fact it was a very controlled recording environment, leaving little to error.
For his trademark sequencer sound, he brought in Harold Faltermeyer who at the time was his keyboard programmer. Harold laid down the part by playing it manually with a slap delay of equal volume which I think surprised us all, as we presumed it would be an actual sequencer but that human element was actually at the core of Giorgio’s sound. He also had his trio of backing singers who had appeared on all the Donna Summer hits, amongst others.
The sessions went so quickly that all, or at least most of the instrumental parts were finished in a single day. The next day was left for final vocal and mixing. It was enjoyable, but there was no mistaking who was in control and the efficiency on display made it feel more like a demo session really.
Had the single been a hit, then I suppose it could have been possible that Giorgio would have been asked to produce the album. Had that been the case, ‘Quiet Life’ would have been a very different beast.
‘Quiet Life’ saw you moving from a recognisable and traditional lead style into something more textural, had there been any particular guitarists who influenced you?
Although there had been plenty of solos in my work in the past, I always felt that my playing was at its best when it was servicing the song rather than sticking out, in a similar way to that of most of George Harrison’s work in THE BEATLES.
At that time due to his remarkably distinctive work with DAVID BOWIE, PETER GABRIEL, DARYL HALL and BLONDIE amongst others, Fripp was my biggest influence and possibly remains so even now. I was also influenced by Phil Manzanera, Carlos Alomar, Earl Slick, Ricky Gardiner and John McGeoch during that album.
Despite the fraught tensions during the ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’ album sessions, ‘Swing’ and ‘Methods Of Dance’ were exemplary examples of JAPAN firing on all cylinders, can you remember much about recording those two tracks?
Both of those tracks were pretty much finalised in rehearsals leading up to the album sessions at The Townhouse and AIR. So my contributions to both tracks in the studio were executed quite swiftly and efficiently with little fuss or struggle. The most effective songs in JAPAN’s repertoire were generally executed this way.
There was one song, ’Angel In Furs’ which we had rehearsed to a similarly honed degree but which when we entered the studio suddenly seemed too obvious and simplistic when compared to the rest, and so it fell by the wayside very early on.
‘Some Kind Of Fool’ is the great lost JAPAN track and was replaced on the ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’ album with ‘Burning Bridges’. What were your memories about the song and its non-appearance on the album?
Unquestionably, it is a beautiful song. I struggled to find parts for it that didn’t intrude on its simple flow but eventually found parts that I was happy with. After that, Ann O’Dell’s strings were added and it was at that point that David decided not to pursue recording it further, the main reason being I believe, that with the strings, it began to resemble ‘The Other Side Of Life’ too closely arrangement-wise which actually I can see was a very valid point. I think in David’s head he was very conscious of the possibility of ‘Polaroids’ becoming ‘Quiet Life Part II’ which none of us wanted, although recording the majority of it at AIR and having the familiar figure of John Punter in the producer’s chair didn’t help.
In some ways, we wanted that easy relaxed camaraderie but that time had passed. Ironically the JAPAN version with a couple of embellishments and a re-recorded vocal eventually found its way onto the Sylvian compilation ‘Everything & Nothing’ but under his name alone, rather unfairly. Surprisingly, the guitar parts which I struggled over remain intact too. Anyone listening to this is essentially listening to an updated version of the original JAPAN band version.
You wrote the JAPAN B-side ‘The Width Of A Room’ but perhaps surprisingly, it was recorded using keyboards rather than guitar, was this more filmic direction something you would have liked to take further had there been an opportunity?
I was always the film buff in the band. Days off would invariably find me in one art house cinema in London or another. On our first Japan trip myself and Pip, the lighting director sneaked off for a screening of ‘Raging Bull’ which was not due to be released in the UK for several months.
During the recording of ‘Polaroids’, I would slip away for a couple of hours to catch a new film on many occasions. For the release of the two-pack single of ‘Polaroids’, it was suggested that we all come up with a suitable instrumental track as a B-side. I wrote ‘The Width Of A Room’ on an acoustic guitar in an open tuning. When it came to the recorded version however, I was the one who was most adamant that it be exclusively a keyboard piece, even though I was encouraged to add some guitar.
I think I wanted it to fit in, rather than someone to say, “Oh that must be the guitarist’s track”. Later when I lived in LA, I did work on a film score with a friend. The movie was some dreadful Charlie Sheen B-movie whose name I have conveniently forgotten and I learned quite quickly that writing music to express emotions that I wasn’t feeling was not something I could really enjoy doing.
It’s pretty well documented that you left JAPAN due to the feeling that your guitar work was being sidelined, do you feel some kind of kinship with Andy Taylor from DURAN DURAN in this respect in terms of a band evolving and not quite fitting in?
As time went on, I was finding it harder and harder to come up with guitar parts that I could be satisfied with on the new material. The track ‘European Son’ for instance, never featured a guitar part because I was never satisfied with anything I tried, although ironically just before my tenure with the band expired, I found a live option I was content with!
But it wasn’t only my own dissatisfaction. By the time of ‘Polaroids’, I felt that myself and David just weren’t on the same wavelength. Not sure we ever were to be honest, but it was more exposed by then. Then there was talk of the band moving to Japan to live for a spell which I was not excited about. The rest of them had each other and very few others could penetrate this circle.
I on the other hand had the group of friends who I grew up with and still enjoyed seeing when I could. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to live in such close proximity with these four other people at the exclusion of everyone else either. So the split was on the cards and inevitable.
Having left JAPAN in 1981 was it still difficult to still be playing on ‘The Art Of Parties’ Spring tour which saw the band make the breakthrough into theatres?
Not at all. I enjoyed playing the songs as much as I ever had, and my relationship with Mick, Rich and Steve was as good as ever, in fact in some ways it might have felt even more relaxed because there was less pressure on me. The only thing I wasn’t happy with was the way David suddenly treated me like a side man. But that was David for you, if you weren’t of any use to him any more then you basically didn’t exist. I don’t doubt there have been plenty with a similar experience over the years.
Around this period, you contributed EBowed guitar to the Numan track ‘Boys Like Me’ from ‘Dance’ which also featured Mick Karn, was that an improvised jam on your part?
Yes, I was invited to the studio on the same day Mick was laying down some bass parts. The track was pulled up, I plugged in and started playing around with an EBow part. Ready to do a proper pass, I found out that Gary was happy with what I had already done! For my own satisfaction I would have preferred recording a couple more takes that Gary could choose from but he felt it wasn’t necessary. We hung around the studio for the rest of the day and I also contributed whoops and hand claps on a B-side which was basically a fretless bass improvisation.
The song ‘Quiet Life’ is probably the best known JAPAN track you played on, so what did you think when it became a Top 20 hit in September 1981 belatedly some 18 months after it first featured on the parent album?
I was living in LA at that time and was barely aware of what was being released posthumously from the Hansa catalogue. I wasn’t really conscious of the re-release or success of any of those tracks. I remember a friend of mine from Epic Records handing me the disc ‘Japan’ which was an amalgam of tracks from ‘Polaroids’ and ‘Tin Drum’ with the most god awful photo of David looking like a secretary or something on the cover. It not surprisingly failed to set the US charts alight. I was busy concentrating on attempting to create a new life for myself on a different continent. Later Mick came out for a holiday. It was nice to hang out and lark about away from the rigidness of the band. We had a blast.
You were part of Numan’s live band during his 1982 comeback tour of clubs in America, reports indicate it wasn’t a happy one, what was your take on it?
It had its ups and downs, certainly. Generally as a band we enjoyed ourselves. Playing with the likes of Pino Palladino and Roger Mason was a great experience and I think we rehearsed solidly for six weeks before the first gig at Perkin’s Palace, a theatre known for rock shows in Pasadena. ‘The Tube’ were in evidence to record Gary’s ‘comeback’ for posterity and in doing so, their crew really messed up the power in the hall and the show was a disaster, despite our last rehearsals being in that very venue! We then had a tour bus setting on fire shortly after and had to wait it out while another was delivered.
Any funny stories you can tell?
I remember playing Boston where we played a large club with a low stage. From the floor there were so many hung lights on the stage that they obscured Pino’s head completely – we had a headless bass player!
In New Orleans, we played on a riverboat which went up and down the Mississippi while we played. Unfortunately Gary’s Mum who was the wardrobe mistress had left Gary’s trademark fedora in the hotel room which was of course then unreachable and so an announcement went out over the tannoy system to see if any of the audience had one Gary could use. When one failed to surface, he opted for the boat captain’s hat instead.
We were a tight, funky band and I would say that in general, we enjoyed each other’s company on the road a lot. WALL OF VOODOO, our support act on the tour were good friends of mine from LA and so a good time was had by all really. The negative aspects really stem from it not being a success financially, not from the players failing to get on or any inherent friction.
You continued working with Australian keyboardist Roger Mason from that Numan tour afterwards in ILLUSTRATED MAN?
Yes, we became firm friends on the tour, similar music tastes being the connection. After the Numan tour, Roger returned to the UK where he was living at the time and I followed soon after, the plan being to create our own music project.
We shared a flat in Ealing Common where we would stay up all night recording on a Fostex 4-track. In those days, we barely saw daylight. We were quite productive but ultimately nothing came of the tapes because we were sidetracked by another Aussie import, Philip Foxman who had recently secured a development deal with EMI.
Soon we became a band. I brought drummer Hugo Burnham into the fold, who I’d met in LA firstly when a band I worked with, VIVABEAT, supported THE GANG OF FOUR at the Palladium and later when he drummed for ABC on a promo US tour for ‘Beauty Stab’. We started demoing songs and got a deal with EMI / Parlophone.
We recorded an album with my good friend John Punter producing, but the project was doomed to failure as neither myself, Roger nor Hugo had much confidence in Philip as our frontman. Nonetheless, we toured the UK as support to Nik Kershaw and with Cyndi Lauper and also did our own tour in the US, promoting a 12” EP of some of the album songs, but at the end of the tour Roger and I split and Hugo did the same soon after. The album as a result was never released.
What did you do after ILLUSTRATED MAN?
Later I would relocate to Australia and form my own band, THE SLOW CLUB. We signed to Virgin and released an album on which Roger’s keyboard expertise featured quite heavily and we had a minor hit over there. I still rate him as the best all-round keyboard player I have ever worked with and we are still good friends today.
You mention ABC, there is a deeper link with them isn’t there?
Yes, I first met those charming chaps in LA when they were touring ‘The Lexicon Of Love’, of which I was and still am a huge fan. I particularly hit it off with Martin, Mark and Stephen. We met again when they were promoting ‘Beauty Stab’ in LA a year later. I even accompanied them on their taping for American Bandstand. Later when I moved back to the UK we often saw each other socially. Martin and I went to PRINCE’s ‘Lovesexy’ tour at Wembley together and also Bowie’s ‘Glass Spider’ show amongst others.
So it was somewhat inevitable that I would end up on an ABC recording somewhere down the line! When that time came, I played on two songs which at that point were demos I believe. They were ‘The Night You Murdered Love’ and ‘Paper Thin’. Although I didn’t play on the album recording, my parts were still used on the ‘Alphabet City’ version of the former and sometime later ‘Paper Thin’ surfaced with all my contributions on the ‘Up’ album. Obviously I haven’t seen any of the ABC boys in many years, although in the mid-2000s Martin and his family visited me here at home for a few days which was lovely.
Can you talk about the Bamboo fanzine and how this helped facilitate Sinéad O’Connor’s debut UK live performance?
The Bamboo fanzine, essentially created for JAPAN’s fanbase, was run by Debi Zornes and Howard Sawyer, both at the time staunch fans of the band. After I had left the band and returned to the UK, we became close and spent a fair bit of time in each other’s company.
When I began working with Sinéad, it seemed logical that I would suggest we play a few songs together at one of the annual fanzine get-togethers at the 100 Club in Oxford Street. Thankfully Sinéad was into the idea although I’m not sure her manager at the time, Fiachra Trench was quite as positive! At that point she had not debuted in public at all, so for our relatively modest little gathering, it was actually quite a coup.
We played three songs with myself accompanying Sinéad on electric guitar – ‘Jackie’ (from the forthcoming debut album), ‘I Fall To Pieces’ (a Patsy Cline cover) and ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND song and the only song with a strong link to JAPAN. Not surprisingly, she was well received.
Can you tell us about O’Connor’s debut album and the two different versions which were recorded?
I was working in the West Country with a band called CRAZY HOUSE who were signed to Chrysalis. For the most part, I was miserable living in Trowbridge (a dead end town if ever I saw one!) and I soon discovered that this particular band dynamic was very oppressive.
By chance I bumped into Tim Butler from THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS who invited me to his wedding nearby. There I was invited to tour with The Furs, which I declined as I still felt a commitment to CRAZY HOUSE.
Soon after however I heard a demo of Sinéad and expressed interest in working with her, although at that point she had a guitarist on board. Except I soon learned that he had been offered and had accepted the touring gig with The Furs that I had turned down, so the gig with Sinéad was mine and I hotfooted it out of Trowbridge – commitment be damned!
For the next year together with the rest of her band, we honed the material that would comprise her first album. We had a rehearsal space at Nomis studios booked solidly for months at a time.
When time came to record the album, Mick Glossop was chosen as producer. He had a strong connection to her record label, Ensign through his work with THE WATERBOYS and seemed like a logical choice. So the sessions began in Townhouse studios. For the most part, Glossop had the entire band record live in the studio which was far from ideal, somewhat chaotic and in many ways counter-productive. At that point the songs were quite electric / folk in feel. We finished the album, which Ensign then sent out to several producers to remix.
But due to the organic way it had been recorded and with the lack of any time codes or click tracks, it was unanimously deemed impossible to remix. So there needed to be a massive rethink. It was decided to re-record the tracks with Kevin Moloney producing in a much more pared down fashion.
The only part of the original sessions that survived were the orchestral tracks which were integral to the epic song ‘Troy’. The second incarnation was very different to the first, with Sinéad’s fiery vocals much more to the fore and a lot of the instrumental embellishments absent. There are certainly tracks from the original sessions that I wish could be heard and maybe one day they will. There’s a wonderfully unique take on THE DOORS song ‘The Crystal Ship’, for instance.
After the recording of the second album, Sinéad found herself pregnant and the album release was put back until she gave birth. In the meantime, I took a gig in Australia which led me on that different path, and so my time with her came to an end. Marco Pirroni added some guitar to two tracks closer to the release date and after I had left for Australia. Throughout it all, working closely with her during that time had been a joy. She was sweet, warm, considerate and a pleasure to be around not to mention an undeniable force of nature.
You reconnected with Jansen, Barbieri and Karn in 1993 on the ‘Beginning To Melt’ album on the ‘Ego Dance’ track, what are your recollections of this?
At the time, I had been living in a small cabin in the woods close to a beach in Costa Rica with an outside toilet and no electricity, surrounded by all manner of wildlife (yep, I loved every minute of it!). So when I returned for a visit to the UK and was invited to record on a track with my ex-band mates, I was far from prepared.
I had barely touched an electric guitar in two years. I knew that I could do a lot better. So basically I did not feel comfortable even though I had the support of old friends and bandmates, whom it was hugely enjoyable hanging out with again after so long. The session was recorded at Steve’s flat at the time in Notting Hill. What I remember most was relaxing and laughing a lot. Steven Wilson and Theo Travis were there too, I think.
In 2016, you shared a really touching post about the late Mick Karn, what was it like with working and spending time with him in the band?
Mick was always from the day we met, a creative force. He was funny and very likeable. He was the personality in the band, the one that most people were drawn towards because he was the most approachable and I believe most enigmatic. Working with him was always inspiring as a musician and I feel grateful to have known him in that capacity. Like everyone, it wasn’t all highs – he had his down times too.
I think my favorite moments came after the band though, out of David’s controlling shadow, just hanging out as friends. I wish I had been around to spend time with him in the later years of his life, but I rarely ventured back to the UK or Europe. I often wonder if ‘missing’ someone is the appropriate term when you haven’t seen each other for decades, but I guess it’s just the reality that if you wanted to, he wouldn’t be there to hang out with anymore.
You dropped out of the industry to become a professional ornithologist and artist, but are now on the verge of releasing some new material, what made you want to get back into making more high profile music?
When I decided to move to Costa Rica, I had no plan and no idea what path I wished to take. I only knew that I needed a change. It certainly wasn’t on the cards that I would become so enraptured with birds that I would become some sort of authority on them and subsequently illustrate field guides for a living.
So music in the last almost 30 years had, by design taken a back seat and up until recently, I had absolutely no desire to rekindle the flame of musical creativity. I think it really boils down to meeting someone who was completely open to my ideas and realizing that recording new music could still be enjoyable, refreshing and inspiring after years and years of disconnect.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK have had a sneak preview of the new album and there is quite a diverse range of influences in it, both electronic and rock, what is the line-up and your role(s) within it?
Our project LIGHT OF DAY is essentially my collaborator Isaac Moraga and myself. We co-wrote, arranged and produced all of the material, bar one cover. Isaac sings and plays guitars, I play guitars, EBow and loops as well as backing vocals. The rest are top rate Costa Rican musicians playing keyboards, bass, percussion and drums.
Certainly the influences are diverse and to a large extent, I would say the album ‘Dimensions’ is a result of all those years not being musically creative, as if after being bottled up inside, it all flooded out through the pieces that Isaac and I have created.
It’s quite a big sound which feels to me like a celebration – positive, propulsive, energetic and atmospheric. There are some epic soundscapes there with echoes of 80s style electronica, ambient, 70s prog rock and more contemporary elements too. At the moment we are fine tuning with a few remixes and Ed Buller is helping out in this department.
Generally I am very happy with this album. Someone said that they thought it was my best work and I think they might be right. In any case I really hope it finds an audience. The plan is to release it on CD, vinyl and digitally some time soon. If anyone is interested they can check out some previews on the LIGHT OF DAY Facebook page.
Recently I also released a digital EP with Martin Birke from GENRE PEAK of ambient-style pieces called ‘Triptych’, which we plan to release on CD with extra content at some point, and I hope to record an album of ambient soundscapes some time in the near future too.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Rob Dean
Led by Mike Score, A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS will embark on their first UK tour for a number of years this July.
A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS got their original break when Bill Nelson produced and released their debut single ‘(It’s Not Me) Talking’ on his Cocteau label in 1981 while another Nelson produced song ‘Telecommunication’ was their first major label release on Jive Records.
But the original line-up of Score, brother Ali on drums, bassist Frank Maudsley and guitarist Paul Reynolds didn’t achieve a breakthrough until their fourth single ‘I Ran’.
It became a 1982 US Top10 hit in the Billboard Hot 100 and later that year, the band scored their biggest UK hit ‘Wishing (I Had A Photograph of You)’. Meanwhile in 1983, the band won a ‘Best Rock Instrumental Performance’ Grammy Award for the track ‘DNA’, at a time when The Second British Invasion had still yet to fully take hold in an America still drunk on TOTO and JOURNEY!
A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS continue live today with Mike Score being the sole remaining original member and have a collection of extended essentials called ‘Inflight’ on the way. He kindly had a quick chat with ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the continuing interest in their music.
It’s been a while since you’ve done a full UK tour, why is the time right now?
Just happened that way really, the time and the offers to play coincided and it all fell in to place. Other years it hasn’t, we are really looking forward to it.
The use of ‘I Ran’ on adverts for Grand Theft Auto Vice City, Sensationail, Diet Pepsi and Lexus won’t have done your profile or bank balance any harm? What was the song originally inspired by and how did it come together in the studio?
That’s a big question, the popularity of the song. ‘I Ran’ has kept it alive in the hearts of fans over the years and some of our fans are in position to want to use it in movies and advertising etc.
The song itself was inspired by a photo of two people running from a UFO, I think the photo was being considered for an album cover for a TEARDROP EXPLODES album as I saw the photo in Zoo Records office in Liverpool. The song was well rehearsed, so there were no problems recording it and we had great input from our producer Mike Howlett and occasional visits from Mutt Lange to see how it was coming along and of course Mike Shipley engineering. For sure, it sounded fab.
How do you look back on the ‘Ascension’ project with the original band reunited and performing with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra?
It was just another way of looking at the songs a different flavour if you like. We recorded everything in separate studios and then the orchestra was added and it was mixed. Apart from doing my parts, I didn’t have too much to do with it really!
So who will be joining you in your live band for the upcoming shows?
The band for the UK shows will be my band from the US, me on keys and vocals, Gordon Deppe from SPOONS on lead guitar, Patrick Villalpando on bass and Kevin Rankin on drums.
You released a solo album ‘Zeebratta’ in 2014, what led you to drop the A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS moniker for this project and how do you think the album stands up now?
I just wanted to do a solo album for myself and I never intended to release it. I think it’s as good as anything I’ve ever done.
Most people know ‘I Ran’, ‘Wishing (I Had A Photograph Of You)’ and ‘Space Age Love Song’ but ‘The More You Live, The More You Love’ is one of your most under rated singles, any thoughts?
One of my best songs I think, again it was a personal song after a chat with my mom. It’s a bit of a lesson in life and a bit of advice to young romantics to be careful with your feelings.
Were many of the songs a result of jamming?
Yes, of course. You come in with an idea of sorts and show it to the band. Then you just jam it out into shape. Some ideas are just one line it a riff or even a beat but after a while, it takes shape and tells you what it needs to turn in to a song.
What were your tastes in music back in the day?
Then THE BEATLES, PINK FLOYD, ULTRAVOX, ELO and good songs from anyone.
Gary Daly of CHINA CRISIS kept his Jupiter8 and still uses it, what happened to yours?
I had two JP8s, they were stolen. Some people love them but I think synths are much better now and with software synths. Emulating the old ones it’s easy to have a huge range of sounds.
You are back living in the UK again, how are you finding it?
I’m not permanently living in the UK, I live between UK and USA as I have done a long time. But I’m English and I love coming home.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Mike Score
Additional thanks to Debora at London Variety
A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS tour the UK in 2019 with special guest KNIGHT$ (except Bristol), dates include:
Wolverhampton Robin 2 (11th July), London Dingwalls (12th-13th July), Liverpool Cavern (14th July), Bristol Fleece (16th July), Leeds Brudenell Social Club (17th July), Newcastle Riverside (18th July), Glasgow Art School (19th July)
What happens when you cross anthemic Scottish indie with cinematic Swedish synth? You get US…
US are the unlikely union of Andrew Montgomery from GENEVA and Leo Josefsson of LOWE. Their impressive debut album ‘First Contact’ is a rousing collection of eleven epic songs, each exuding a unique Celtic Scandinavian air with Montgomery taking centre stage with his magnificent three octave vocal set to Josefsson’s spacey electronic soundscapes.
An album of two halves with guitars and drums also occasionally making their presence felt, ‘First Contact’ is a well-crafted debut record, expressing broken dreams and midlife sorrows with a sublime cinematic quality. Meanwhile with their live presentation, the striking visual spectacle puts the duo up there with KITE in terms of ambition.
While GENEVA recently reformed and LOWE have been on hiatus, for Montgomery and Josefsson, US is presently their main creative outlet. The pair chatted about their ‘First Contact’, producing “The soundtrack to the movie of your life” and much more.
The two of you have had not insubstantial profiles in your previous bands GENEVA and LOWE which produced very different types of music from each other, but how did US all come together?
Andrew: It’s indirectly the fault of the late, great Glen Campbell (RIP). Both of us were at a barbecue held by a mutual friend in the Stockholm suburbs in May 2015, just a few months after I moved to Stockholm. We were all making merry and I got up to sing along to ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ (as you do). Leo heard me sing and afterwards asked if I wanted to try writing a song with him. He said something like “I think my sound and your voice would work well together”, and it proved to be true, as we wrote our first song in just a couple of hours just a few weeks later. The song is called ‘Everything Is Leading Up To This’ and it’s included as a bonus track on the Bandcamp album page.
When you were discussing directions, were each of you pleasantly surprised by some of each other’s tastes where you found a commonality?
Andrew: I was surprised that Leo wasn’t an aficionado of Glen Campbell 😉
Actually, even if Leo was coming from a ‘synthpop’ background and me from indie-guitar band origins, what we both had in common right away was a love of drama and packing as much emotion as possible into the structure of a pop song, and that works whether it happens to be guitar-based or synth-based. And I don’t recall that we discussed a huge amount of influences at first. It was more just getting into Leo’s studio and start writing.
It had to be epic, it had to be filmic and the finer details just arrived organically. Though it’s fair to say that I probably badger Leo more about possible influences / ideas that I hear; I’m quite mercurial in that respect, as I constantly churn my way through mini-musical obsessions.
One week ambient electronic, the next week melodic techno, the week after that Tibetan nose flute orchestras…
I’m certainly roving far from my indie background these days, and have been mainly listening to electronic music for most of the past decade.
Leo: Andrew constantly tries to persuade me to introduce nose flutes when we write new songs, but to date I’ve been able to resist.
Some artists like to impose restrictions to aid their creativity, are there any “no-nos” in US?
Leo: Perhaps you mean “no-nose”? Apart from that I would find it most improbable that we would end up writing “schlager festival tracks”, but I wouldn’t rule anything out at this point.
Andrew: I think it’s more about what we should be, rather than not be, and that’s original, heartfelt, filmic and engaging.
Do you have defined roles with regards songwriting and production or does it overlap?
Andrew: It does overlap, simply because we are open to each other’s ideas. And also because Leo in particular can play the instruments, produce, come up with lyrics and sing, so he has an ear for melody that has come in handy.
For example, in the chorus of ‘Technicolor’, which for a while was a little bit stuck with the melody / lyrics that now occur in the middle eight (the bit about “now and then I’ve found…” etc).
Leo came up with this defiant “I see the world…” chorus that is a perfect counterpoint to my rather agonised verses, a sort of ‘fukitall’ vibe that is almost saying to the subject of the song “your loss” after the initial “whys?” of the verses.
I do tend to write most of the lyrics and most of the melodies though, as I’m into doing that and work hard on it. I also suggest little tweaks here and there to songs that Leo then (patiently) translates into something more concrete and makes the change. One example was the change to a four-to-the-floor beat for ‘The Stars That Arc Across the Sky’. We’d been wrestling with the arrangement of that one for some time, and once that clicked, Leo was able to work his magic.
What about differences in the Scottish and Swedish ways of thinking? Have there been any amusing moments while writing and recording?
Leo: I’m kind of a “flatliner”, meaning I can control my temper. Sometimes, Andrew cannot. I just laugh at him, and buy him some candy and everything will be ok within minutes. Sometimes when we’re out clubbing, Andrew is confronted by Swedish drunk manners and responds rather robustly (which I’m not used to), that can be very entertaining and frightening at times. 🙂
At the same time I must give him credit, because most Swedes don’t react even if someone has been very rude to them.
Andrew: I think Leo does very well to: 1) Decipher my accent when I lapse into Glaswegian-dialect English and 2) Follow my rather idiosyncratic Swedish (we probably spend about 65-70 per cent of the time talking in Swedish).
‘Till The Dying of the Light’ has that glorious Nordic Noir quality, how did that come together as your first single?
Andrew: Thanks. Glad you like it! We’re proud of that one too. I think (and Leo can correct me if I’m wrong), there was a keyboard improvisation that I came up with the verses to. I have a picture in my mind’s eye of US writing the chorus and me coming up with the melody… it was spur-of-the-moment as it often is. But I seem to recall me Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ being an image at the back of my head, crossed with relationship travails. I have to credit Leo alone for the Nordic Noir production – he did a great job, and maybe there was a little ‘Blade Runner’ creeping in there too?
Leo: I think this was my first intention to take US into the “synth domain” after a few months of experimenting with different sounds and genres. I instantly felt that the song needed that suit, and it was instantly clear that it would work out perfectly.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK described ‘Voyager’ as being like “MUSE at Gatecrasher”, but what did you have in mind when you were recording it?
Leo: I think you’re on point there, even though I was more diving into the world of Jean-Michel Jarre and spent a few days getting the arpeggios right. Turned out to be worthwhile if I may say so. The song went through many different stages before ending up the way you can hear now… there’s another version called ‘To The End Of The World’ that is more live band-based and is a result of an early idea I had for the track that I just couldn’t leave unfinished.
Andrew: I LOVE that description! Thank you! I just recall Leo being really happy with this brilliant synth arpeggio he had come up with and me asking for a bit of time to go away and do it justice in terms of melody and lyrics. It just felt very spacey and, as with a lot of Leo’s musical ideas, it had a visual aspect that made me think of Voyager (or its ‘Star Trek’ equivalent V’ger) and deep-space travel. Then there’s the sentiment of thinking that the past is behind you but something coming back to remind you of those darker times. The impulse to travel to the end of the word to avoid it is strong, I can tell you…
‘The Stars That Arc Across the Sky’ and ‘In Denial’ are quite guitar driven anthems which are perhaps not that far off U2, was that intentional?
Andrew: Leo had been talking about getting more guitar into some of the songs, and it seemed to really work with both of those. I see where you’re coming from with U2, though I must admit that I hear late 70s / early 80s ROXY MUSIC in the former’s guitar arrangements and PULP in the latter.
Leo: Throughout the work with ‘First Contact’ (although it wasn’t until 2018 that we decided to make an album), I had this stubborn idea that our first musical period would be totally electronic. But working with a few of the songs, live drums, guitars and electric bass (no, not nose flute) kept raising their heads and I had to surrender and open up to a bigger sound palette.
NEW ORDER have separate electronic and guitar-based tracks, so are you thinking US can fit into this multi-faceted template?
Andrew: We are both fans of NEW ORDER and I think that’s a good idea you have there!
Leo: Again, you’re on point. NEW ORDER has been a great influence and I hope we can do the idea of guitars and electronics justice.
‘Mute’ is particularly poignant, was it inspired by real events?
Andrew: It’s actually a cover of a 90s-era song by STAKKA BO, so we had no lyrical inspiration there. Leo knows Johan Renck, one half of STAKKA BO and now an acclaimed director whose work includes the last two Bowie videos (‘Blackstar’ and ‘Lazarus’), and the MUST WATCH ‘Chernobyl’, which after having seen four of the five episodes is the greatest series I’ve ever seen.
‘Technicolor’ is quite unusual compared with the other tracks on ‘First Contact’ with its Schaffel backbone?
Leo: Originally I experimented with mixing Schaffel parts with straight quantised parts which was very interesting at first, but the song felt a bit more interesting and progressive keeping it “schaffeling” all the way through and that’s how it ended up.
There is a surreal blues tone to ‘The Healer’?
Andrew: Wow, you are very descriptive! I really like your insights, Chi. It felt like it was a sort of downbeat blues-based song when we first came up with it. We left it to the side for a bit but came back to it because it had something that Leo felt he could develop further. The lyrics are a bit stream-of-consciousness, but that often hints at a deeper truth, though in this case I’m not sure I care to explore that further…
Is the visual aspect important to US with the videos and the ‘Close Encounters Of The Third Kind’ scientist imagery?
Leo: I think we’re both into sci-fi movies and futuristic aesthetics and it felt like a natural way to place US into that world. We try to write timeless music and we hope people keep discovering it for many years to come.
You’ve have gone out live, what has the reaction been and what sort of people are US appealing to from the audiences you’ve met?
Andrew: There are fans of both of our bands, people who like electronic music, people we know and people who like to investigate new music.
Leo: The live part is very important to US, and I think we have been a very positive and unexpected pleasure for people that have had no idea about our music beforehand.
So what are the current statuses of GENEVA and LOWE? Is US a long-term project?
Andrew: GENEVA has actually reformed, and we’ll be playing four dates at the StarShaped Festival at the end of August and into September. That’s a wee bit of a nostalgia fest, but it’s actually opening the way for GENEVA to do some writing and we’ll see where it goes, which is great. But I live in Stockholm and my life is here, so it’ll have to fit around that. And can I just say if Leo ever decided to park US, I would be devastated! I’ve been waiting to make music like this all my life, and Leo is the perfect creative foil for me as well as a good friend. I hope we can do a lot more live work to promote this album (limited funds and day jobs currently intervene), and then work on more US music.
Leo: LOWE has never officially split up, you could say it’s on a long-term vacation. It would be great to pick it up some day, even though US is the priority right now.
How do look back on your times with the bands you made your names in?
Andrew: Time tints the glasses a bit, gives them a bit of rosy nostalgia. I’m really proud of GENEVA, and your first band is always really special. That’s why it’s great to be doing something with that project again. But it wasn’t always easy with record company politics, commercial expectations and the pressures of trying to make it work under a very harsh spotlight. Overall it was an amazing but also challenging experience for me, I must say. And I’m grateful for the musical path it set me on, that continues to this day with US.
Leo: Since we started LOWE in 2003, we have been touring all over the world and I’m very thankful (and full of nostalgia) to the fact that I’ve seen places I would never see otherwise. It’s been great to get to know other cultures and music scenes, especially in Eastern Europe where I’ve made many good friends.
Overall, how has the response to ‘First Contact’ been, was it what you hoped for?
Andrew: We’re really happy to have released the album after four years of development. That reviewers like you guys at ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK like it makes US even happier! There have been some lovely reviews and good feedback, and I think it’ll prove to be a grower, word-of-mouth thing. Please just spread the word, as it’s difficult to reach as many people as we’d like without the backing of a full-time organisation or promotion. We’ll continue to promote it in the months ahead.
What’s next for you both, either as US or with other projects?
Andrew: I mentioned the GENEVA project. US plans to play live more after the summer, and see where we can go next with this hugely enjoyable musical adventure.
Leo: I’m personally high on the US-vibe right now and have already ideas for new tracks. I have no doubt this is just the beginning.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to US
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ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to David Cicero
on Amour Records, the trio swear by analogue sounds, toy synths, chaotic guitars, fake strings, and off-beat rhythms complimented by deep voices in English and Greek.
, resulting in him appearing on just four tracks.
film and soundtrack, which had just won 
would have been a very different beast.
but under his name alone, rather unfairly. Surprisingly, the guitar parts which I struggled over remain intact too. Anyone listening to this is essentially listening to an updated version of the original JAPAN band version.
is a rousing collection of eleven epic songs, each exuding a unique Celtic Scandinavian air with Montgomery taking centre stage with his magnificent three octave vocal set to Josefsson’s spacey electronic soundscapes.
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