From the author of ‘Listening To The Music The Machines Make – Inventing Electronic Pop 1978-1983’ comes ‘Looking Backwards Towards The Future: The Story of ULTRAVOX’.
This first authorised biography of ULTRAVOX is the work of Richard Evans, a music industry stalwart who founded the popular website This Is Not Retro and currently holds down a day job working for ERASURE.
Drawing from a vast archive of research materials and incorporating exclusive input from band members, as well as from their peers, their label and management teams, ‘Looking Backwards Towards The Future’ tells the many varied stories of the band, from fractures and fallouts to ambition and ego.
Written with the knowledge, permission and co-operation of the majority of the band’s surviving core members, the book traces ULTRAVOX’s art school beginnings led by John Foxx, changes of line-up and reinvention as a hit band fronted by Midge Ure on the back of the New Romantic movement. ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK sat down with Richard Evans to get the lowdown on its genesis and realisation…
It came as a surprise when you announced your ULTRAVOX book but then again, with the title of your last book ‘Listening To The Music The Machines Make’, it was blindingly obvious!!!
At the end my last book, I didn’t know what I was going to do! *laughs*
So there wasn’t a big joined up plan at any point but ‘Listening To The Music The Machines Make’ did well enough for Omnibus to ask whether I would like to do another book. I went up to London to meet with them and I pitched 4 ideas… and they favoured the ULTRAVOX book.
There IS a gap in the market, that first ULTRAVOX book ’In Their Own Words’ back in the day was some tacky thing like ‘A Tourist’s Guide To JAPAN’…
Yes that’s right, lots of pictures and some quotes…
‘Listening To The Music The Machines Make’ was very much using archive material as references, so what was your approach this time?
It was similar actually… one of the reasons I came up with the ULTRAVOX book idea, apart from their not already being an ULTRAVOX biography, was the research was already in place as I had collected it from doing ‘Listening To The Music The Machines Make’. One of the things that interested me about ULTRAVOX in THAT story was they were one of the very few bands who were there at the beginning AND at the end of the period that I wrote about.
I started working from the research materials I already had and I put together some bits and pieces before I contacted the band. They all came on board in dribs and drabs. I didn’t want to take them through the same stories that they had told thousands of times since 1974, I wanted to write the book essentially first and then come to the band to talk about the things I needed more information about.
Who in the band came on board and was there any reluctance from some?
I got in touch with Billy Currie first as I had interviewed him before and about the same time, I got in touch with John Foxx as well. Billy connected me with Warren Cann and separately Midge Ure also said yes as well.
The next person I tried to get was Stevie Shears, the original guitarist and through a very convoluted period, I tracked down a friend of his and told him about the book; in the end, his friend said Stevie didn’t really want to go back to all those days. So unfortunately Stevie isn’t represented, however the ‘Systems Of Romance’ guitarist Robin Simon is represented and he was put in contact with me via Steve Malins, John Foxx’s manager.
What’s particularly interesting about Stevie Shears is he later trained to become a psychotherapist and so did the late Chris Cross after he first left ULTRAVOX in 1987, discuss…
I’m sure ULTRAVOX was not the reason they became psychotherapists! *laughs*
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s own journey with ULTRAVOX is an odd one, it starts with the ‘Vienna’ album in 1980, jumps back to the ‘Ultravox!’ debut, then goes to the ‘Three Into One’ compilation and then ‘Rage In Eden’ in 1981 as that hadn’t come out yet and became next in line, what was yours?
I wish I had a cooler answer than this but it was the ‘Vienna’ album because it WAS everywhere and the single was such a slice of different music coming through at a time when there was loads of really interesting things happening, it was an unusual record. It caught my ear and I bought the single and continued buying the singles as they went through.
But they were never really my band; for me, they were always a singles band, I didn’t really have the albums. It wasn’t until later that I had the albums and rediscovered them in a more general way. Part of the appeal of writing the book was that I didn’t know much about them, I had no pre-conceived ideas and it was all new to me.
Do you have a particular favourite phase of ULTRAVOX? I love the Conny Plank trilogy but most seem to discriminate in between the John Foxx and Midge Ure eras, although no-one has said the Sam Blue period yet! *laughs*
The most interesting period for me was ‘Rage In Eden’ because the band were in this situation where the world was at their feet, they could have done whatever they wanted, they could have just taken the easy route and they completely threw that out of the window and did something so strange and idiosyncratic! That’s absolutely brilliant that they had the balls to do that, what an extraordinary body of music to come out with when they could have just been pop stars!
Did the band share any light as to what it was like to be stuck in the middle of the German countryside for 3 months recording ‘Rage In Eden’?
All of those who were involved are proud of ‘Rage In Eden’ and part of that was because it was made against all the odds in terms of the 3 months in Germany with Conny Plank and also the pressure on them individually with the things that were happening around them and also in their relationships with each other under those periods of stress.
How did you find everyone was when talking about their time in ULTRAVOX?
I was never able to speak to two people at the same time, all my interviews were individual. I interviewed them in different ways; Billy was interviewed on Zoom and we had a series of very lengthy conversations. With Warren, it was on the phone and they were lengthy chats as well. John would only really answer messages by email as he likes to consider them and have a think about things. Midge was unwell during the period I wanted to talk to him so I didn’t have a direct connection with him at all in the end which was unfortunate.
At the beginning of the process, the various members were very careful about how they portrayed the relationships within the band. But as I got to know them better, they got a little bit more secure talking to me and were little bit more honest! Some bits I was able to print, some of which I’m not! It was a bit of a balancing act! *laughs*
So the Midge version of the band fragmented just before ‘U-Vox’ in 1986 when Warren was ousted and then after the album and tour, the band was no more… fans will generally blame the others kicking Warren out as being the reason that it all fell apart, but do you think the cracks actually happened during the recording of the ‘Lament’ album in 1984? My evidence of that would be they put out an 8 track album which meant they didn’t have enough material and I know those songs are fan favourites but the ‘Lament’ album seems to deteriorate towards the end with ‘When The Time Comes’ and ‘A Friend I Called Desire’ sounding almost unfinished?
I would agree completely, that was the time in their history when their relationships got problematic. Also, each of them were being pulled in different directions. Midge wanted go and do solo stuff, Warren had that ongoing HELDEN project which he was so passionate about and so invested in… they had other things happening. Then of course there was Band Aid and then Live Aid, all those things that didn’t help!
Weirdly, do you think ‘Dancing With Tear In My Eyes’ becoming a Top3 hit didn’t help the situation and kept that line-up of ULTRAVOX together for much longer than necessary when perhaps it had run its course?
I think there’s something in that… creatively after ‘Lament’, they were already considering their options. But because they had that level of success, I suspect they had to keep following it while they were on a high! Maybe in retrospect, that wasn’t the way to do it!
The socio-political impact ULTRAVOX had in pop culture is often understated… in the early summer of 1984, you have Nik Kershaw with ‘I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’, Frankie with ‘Two Tribes’ and ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’ all in the charts with their nuclear angst themes… so you have these families watching ‘Top Of The Pops’ before David Attenborough’s ‘The Living Planet’ and the BBC decide to show most of the ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’ video including the explosion!?! Did you watch that edition back in the day?
I did watch it and it didn’t particularly resonate with me at the time. But I know this was a situation that the band had to navigate because people would approach them and say “my children were asking what the song is all about and they are upset!”; it was a strange paranoid period in our history where everyone was going “what’s happening?”
That American film ‘The Day After’ had been shown and BBC’s ‘Threads’ would come later in that year, it’s the whole antithesis of the legwarmers and Filofax thing that some think this Thatcher / Reagan “loadsamoney” decade is all about?
It feels like similar times in lots of ways now although I’m not feeling that reflected in the things that I’m hearing in the same way as the nuclear paranoia of 1984. But I think the way we listen and watch is so different, everything is so much broader now whereas back then, we HAD to listen to those records because they were the records that were on the radio!
So it’s 1987, Midge decides he doesn’t want to do ULTRAVOX anymore, Chris goes with him but Billy carries on! And there’s this period where Billy goes through a series of vocalists, Marcus O’Higgins, Tony Fenelle and Sam Blue. Was there still life in the ULTRAVOX name at this time for live bookings etc or was Billy just being bloody minded?
I would agree with the latter and I think Billy would agree with that as well. I think it became something that he wanted, it wasn’t available to him initially and made him want to pursue it even more! As a result, rather than concentrating on the nuts and bolts of putting together these new line-ups and exploring what they could do, it was more about what name was going to be put on it rather than what it actually was. That was a shame because these line-ups had potential in their own ways.
Photo by Rob Harris
So it’s 2008 and the classic line-up of ULTRAVOX unexpectedly announce they will reform for a tour the following year, what’s your take on that part of the story?
I don’t think anyone could have predicted that one coming. It was a complete surprise to me also but the fantastic bit was by that point, I had caught up with ULTRAVOX and I knew I’d liked them more than I realised previously and it gave me a chance to go see them as I’d never seen them before. So I saw them at Hammersmith Apollo and was absolutely blown away, I thought they were a fantastic live act so that was a really special moment from my point of view.
It seemed that they had got on well enough after 2 tours to do a new album ‘Brilliant’, what did you think of it because it did go through a few problems?
It did go through a few problems but obviously at that point, we the audience weren’t really aware of that. As far as we were concerned, the band had reformed, it had all gone extremely well and had led to this opportunity to make new music. New music from this line-up of ULTRAVOX was a very special thing and when the album came out, I reviewed it for This Is Not Retro and I liked it. I looked back at what I wrote when I was doing the book and fortunately I’d been quite enthusiastic about it. I said something like “it doesn’t push any boundaries” but would we want it to? I still enjoy it now!
I like it as well but I think it’s too long, it could do with 3 less tracks but which 3 is debatable… I think the important thing was it got the band on the road again. The thing about ULTRAVOX live in this period, they were quite clever in that the lighting was quite subtle, so you sort of couldn’t tell how old the band were! But how it all drifted apart after, how have you concluded what happened?
At the beginning of the reunion, they were able to draw on the “newness” of getting back together again but after the novelty of that wore off, it feels like some of the old issues were creeping back in! *laughs*
Of course, ULTRAVOX were much older than their peers at that point and touring is a tough old game. When I was talking to Warren about this, he was paraphrasing someone else but he basically said “they don’t pay me to play, they pay me to travel… the playing is great but the travelling f*cking sucks!” *laughs*
Usually, the fun bit about doing any kind of book or article is to find out something you didn’t know before, was there anything in the course of doing ‘Looking Backwards Towards the Future’ where that happened?
It’s a bit tricky for me to answer that one actually because I didn’t have that fan perspective going in, I didn’t quite know what the narrative was, and what was surprising and what wasn’t for other people. So I’m not really going to know that until people have digested the book and comment “I had no idea that was the case” etc.
Going back to the early days of ULTRAVOX, John Foxx has said before that he started the band as an art project, what is your take on that?
This feeds into what we were talking about and things I discovered, so I asked John specifically about that and if it was an art project, was it marked by the college? And they didn’t really! But the way his art course was, it was very self-directed and as long as people at the college knew what he was up to, he could kind of go off and do his thing. The fact that he seized upon this concept as a result of a lecture at art college and created this band and a world around it for the band to exist in, that was an interesting part of the story.
The John Foxx era of ULTRAVOX did not get a lot of good press, as Billy once pointed out in that Channel 4 run down show ‘Top Ten 80s Romantics’ in 1999, “you can do a lot of things with ‘Ultra’, there’s Ultrahype and Ultracrap” but despite all of this, Paul Weller was a fan?
Paul Weller apparently used to go and see them in the early days and was a constant presence…
Midge joining ULTRAVOX was as a result of VISAGE happening first, is the VISAGE story something you cover in the book?
I don’t cover VISAGE as such because it’s its own story, it’s a separate story and quite a complicated one… it’s possibly one that could be a book itself, not that I have a plan in that direction! *laughs*
Obviously I mention it and Rusty Egan in his machinations about getting everyone together but I don’t go into any of the side projects of any of the members…
So you don’t go into John Foxx with ‘Metamatic’ or Midge Ure with ‘No Regrets’ or ‘The Gift’?
No, I would have had to do the same for everybody and that would have made the book quite unwieldy and a bit bloated to be honest.
Now you’ve mentioned balance, with the core 7 members, how did manage it in the book?
In any situation, whatever I was writing about, I always tried to bring in as much of everyone’s view of that situation as possible. It’s not a book that makes judgements, it’s a book that sets out what happened in my understanding of it and I support that with the various conversations with the band members. Obviously, at times they were more friendly to each other than at other times.
As well as the music, a key part of both John Foxx and Midge Ure era of ULTRAVOX was the visual presentation and in the latter case particularly, the videos… how far do you go into the visual aspects of the band?
Quite a lot actually, I think that was a very important part of the band and the way they presented themselves because it was almost like presenting fantasy versions of themselves. They could create these little worlds they could occupy and they could present themselves in whatever ways they chose.
From a video point of view, they were pioneers for sure and that is definitely noteworthy. From an artwork point of view, the fact that John was an art student so art directed and designed so much of the early stuff, and then after, they started to use people like Peter Saville who is a key name in music design, they always seemed to be on top of that side of things. There’s an element of the band controlling their own career which is really important and a power behind their success. People at their label Chrysalis said ULTRAVOX would come in with their ideas and they would just need the record company to make those ideas come true.
I thought it was interesting that although ULTRAVOX did have Peter Saville do their sleeve designs, it is widely reported that he didn’t particularly like the music… did any of that come out in your research and how was this navigated in the working relationship?
I think it did matter… it was Chris Cross who brought Peter Saville into the ULTRAVOX camp because he was interested in the work he was doing with Factory Records. Peter Saville was a great designer in his moment because I studied design in university and he was someone I looked up to. The problem with Peter and I have worked with him since, is that he’s very very slow. So if you are on any sort of a deadline, then that’s problematic because you can’t be working on that sort of basis.
ULTRAVOX were often quite late in bringing a project to the point where it needed design so they needed someone faster to work with. I still think those Peter Saville covers are among the best of the ULTRAVOX cannon.
I wanted to throw this theory forward, that because he wasn’t into the music, Peter Saville’s more outlandish ideas got onto ULTRAVOX artwork and made it more striking. I would even argue that much of his ULTRAVOX work is better than what he did with OMD and in some cases, NEW ORDER?
Yes, that’s an interesting path to tread because there must have been a limited number of artists to work with who were that open to that sort of intellectual conceptualising to the extent that NEW ORDER did and that ULTRAVOX also did. In a way, they were a great match but it feels that they ran their course and just gently drifted from each other. I think that’s also quite healthy. The band was changing as well and it needed new visual approaches. I have to say that ‘U-Vox’, not the most successful or popular of ULTRAVOX’s albums, is one of my favourite sleeves in its original striped LP PVC outer package.
My favourite sleeve is ‘Rage In Eden’…
Yes, my other one would be ‘Rage In Eden’, it would be between both of those.
Video became very much part of the classic line-up of ULTRAVOX with Midge and Chris going on to direct them; my favourite is ‘The Voice’ because it’s so arty farty and has a lot of on-the-line imagery… I mean holding fire torches while walking up a hill at night can be perceived as something else, especially with the band’s attire at the time which was like Germans in the 1930s, the “dead man’s clothes” as Midge once put it! Do you have a favourite video? *laughs*
I would probably go with ‘Love’s Great Adventure’ because it makes me laugh every time, it’s funny and light-hearted.
Who was the driving force of the videos, was it Chris or was it Midge?
It was as a team, they found this little niche for themselves and they were happy to do it while Warren and Billy were less bothered by the conceptualising of that. They just ran with it and what a great thing to run with!
I remember when ULTRAVOX ‘The Collection’ came out in 1984 and it also came out as a video compilation and I bought the Betamax cassette of it! *laughs*
BETAMAX! *laughs*
There’s a lot of groundbreaking stuff that ULTRAVOX did with the “greatest hits” package like this accompanying full-length video and including a brand new track, do you think it’s something that they don’t get enough credit for?
I do, it’s almost like every version of ULTRAVOX from John Foxx’s concept right into their imperial hit phase, they were so groundbreaking and pioneering yet no-one ever gave them the respect. There’d always been someone just rushing up behind them who would take those ideas and run with them to get all the credit and all the praise. They were extremely unlucky in lots of ways.
Is the story of ULTRAVOX comparable in some ways to those of PINK FLOYD or GENESIS?
I think there definitely are some parallels with those progressive rock bands.
I know this sounds a bit obvious, but who are you aiming this book at? *laughs*
It’s a good question actually because in lots of people’s perception, there’s 2 ULTRAVOXs and you only like one or the other! I would love people in both of those camps to get the book, I would love them to read the section they are interested in, but I would also love them to read the other section so that they can get a sense of what else was happening around these people and their creative trajectories.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Richard Evans
The Blitz Club aesthetic did not emerge from a vacuum. It was forged in the stark friction between punk’s dying embers and the pristine allure of the synthesizer.
More than just a band, VISAGE became the ultimate studio collective, drawing talents from the ranks of MAGAZINE and ULTRAVOX to create a blueprint for the decade to come. Formed in late 1978 as a direct reaction to the shortage of electronic dance music to play at The Blitz Club, after the demise of RICH KIDS, former members Midge Ure and Rusty Egan recruited The Blitz Club’s figurehead, Steve Strange, to front the project.
With studio time allocated to RICH KIDS left over, Strange, Ure and Egan cut a cover of Zager & Evans’ ‘In The Year 2525’ as one of several demos also including ‘The Dancer’. Although Ure and Egan were still contracted to EMI, the label turned VISAGE down. However, the demos soon caught the ear of producer Martin Rushent who conveniently kept an office directly above The Blitz Club. At the time working for the Warner Brothers subsidiary Radar Records who had found success with Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello, Rushent was intending to launch his own Genetic Records imprint.
Photo by Sheila Rock
With their primary bands on temporary hiatus, ULTRAVOX’s Billy Currie, along with MAGAZINE’s Dave Formula, John McGeoch and bassist Barry Adamson were swiftly co-opted. Convening at Rushent’s new studio in Reading, this synthesized super group began shaping an album. The first fruits of these sessions was ‘Tar’, released as a single on Genetic Records in the autumn of 1979. However, Warner Brothers short-sightedly pulled the plug on the label. It was a monumental miscalculation; Rushent had been in discussions with several acts said to have included JOY DIVISION and SPANDAU BALLET.
Despite the setback, the fallout from this period acted as a catalyst that would alter the career trajectory of those involved. Midge Ure joined Billy Currie in a re-launched ULTRAVOX and to pay for new equipment, Billy Currie accepted an offer to join Gary Numan’s live band on his first concert tour while Midge Ure headed stateside to fill in for an absent Gary Moore in THIN LIZZY. Meanwhile intrigued by the synthesizers that had entered his studio, Martin Rushent invested in a Roland MC-8 Micro-composer and a LinnDrum Computer.
Meanwhile, VISAGE was placed on ice until a new deal was brokered with Polydor Records via ULTRAVOX’s new management team, Morrison-O’Donnell who looked after THIN LIZZY. As all the other members were already signed to other labels, Steve Strange was the only signatory on the contract with Morrison-O’Donnell then filtering payments to each relevant individual.
During gaps in their day jobs, Ure and Currie continued to construct the VISAGE album, with Ure effectively taking the production helm. Needing one final track to complete the long-player, Currie brought in an instrumental called ‘Toot City’ which he had co-written with keyboardist Chris Payne that had been shaped during soundchecks on the Gary Numan tour. With Ure drafting lyrics and a melancholic melody line, the track was transformed into ‘Fade To Grey’; it would become an international smash and the 1981’s best-selling song in West Germany.
Photo by Sheila Rock
There are still very public arguments about how the royalties in VISAGE were split, but although he did not play on ‘Fade To Grey’ or a number of the other tracks like ‘Moon Over Moscow’, the late John McGeoch did very well out of his share of the eponymous VISAGE album; he confirmed in an interview before his death that he was able to buy a house while bandmate Howard Devoto recalled that in contrast to the less-financially fruitful MAGAZINE, “It enabled him to enjoy the finer things…”
Visually, Steve Strange conjured an exquisite mutation of Edwardian dandies and Weimar Cabaret but while others that came out of The Blitz Club like SPANDAU BALLET and CULTURE CLUB eventually achieved greater global commercial saturation, VISAGE truly encapsulated the New Romantic aesthetic in a sound that fused symphonic classical overtones with the electronic dance beat of Neu Europa.
Despite further hits including ‘Mind Of A Toy’, ‘Visage’, ‘The Damned Don’t Cry’ and ‘Night Train’, members gradually left over the first two albums ‘Visage’ and ‘The Anvil’ so by the appalling third album ‘Beat Boy’ in 1984, only Strange and Egan remained. Morrison-O’Donnell had also left but had renegotiated with Polydor for their charges Ure and Currie to be accounted for outside of the original Steve Strange signed VISAGE contract.
Years later, the VISAGE sound rippled through modern electronic pop. Kelly Osbourne’s ‘One Word’ in 2005 and Kylie Minogue’s ‘Like A Drug’ in 2007 stood as highly obvious, if not blatant, sonic pastiches of ‘Fade To Grey’. More recently, that particular evergreen has featured in advertisements for Gris Dior and Coco Crush.
VISAGE returned in 2013 with just Steve Strange remaining but he passed away suddenly in 2015. While there have been posthumous albums of VISAGE outtakes and reworkings since his death, there is known to be a solo album that he wrote and recorded with ‘Beat Boy’ bassist Steve Barnacle between 2013-2014 that remains unreleased.
VISAGE was a tree that grew, broke in places and sadly had branches that died. ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK presents a synthcentric guide to the extended axis of the ultimate New Romantic ensemble.
RICH KIDS Marching Men (1978)
Comprising of Midge Ure, Glen Matlock, Steve New and Rusty Egan, RICH KIDS had already the debuted the power-pop of ‘Rich Kids’. But ‘Marching Men’ was darker, acting as commentary on the new Nazis like The National Front. A vital catalyst for VISAGE, it was notable for Ure’s first use of his new Yamaha CS50; it featured in his 2024 tour as the song became relevant again with the normalisation of racist views by Reform UK.
With John Foxx still fronting ULTRAVOX, the band were on the cusp of a breakthrough working with Conny Plank on ‘Systems of Romance’. Tracks like ‘Quiet Men’ featured cutting electronic percussion from Warren Cann but the classically trained Billy Currie was taking on a greater role with his soaring ARP Odyssey solo acting as a sonic beacon. This was the kind of icy art pop with European electronic influences that could be integrated into the concept of VISAGE.
Available on the ULTRAVOX boxed set ‘The Island Years’ via Universal Music Group
Recorded during VISAGE’s first-ever studio session but shelved for years, this cover of the Zager & Evans’ one hit wonder was a total musical twist of the original’s acoustic folk bleakness with its transformation into a cold electronic pulsar. Steve Strange’s vocal delivery was appropriately detached with vocal backing by Ure whose effective synth arrangements were punctuated by Egan’s early synthetic percussion.
The Howard Devoto-led MAGAZINE provided three members to the VISAGE line-up; guitarist / saxophonist John McGeoch, bassist Barry Adamson, and keyboardist Dave Formula. ‘Permafrost’ was the sinister closing track from ‘Secondhand Daylight’ which showcased Formula’s chilling atmospheric synth work, Adamson’s noir edge and McGeoch’s angular textures. This would provide VISAGE with some post-punk credibility.
A spiky critique of smoking, ’Tar’ was the first VISAGE single and released on Martin Rushent’s Genetic imprint through Radar Records. Dominated by John McGeoch’s bleating sax and Billy Currie’s cutting ARP Odyssey, Radar Records had funding pulled from its parent company Warners just as the single was released, stalling any potential it had. Tired of all the business hassles, Adamson would leave but return as a session player.
Available on VISAGE album ‘Visage’ via Universal Music Group
Ure accepted Currie’s invitation to join ULTRAVOX following the suggestion of Rusty Egan, thus solidifying a cross-pollination with VISAGE. ‘Sleepwalk’ was the first fruit of labour and a mighty opening salvo for the band’s new era. Again working with Conny Plank and with hints of KRAFTWERK throughout, it proved that synths could be aggressive and melodic all at once as ULTRAVOX entered the UK singles charts for the first time.
Available on ULTRAVOX album ‘Vienna’ via Chrysalis Records
As the new line-up of ULTRAVOX charted, MAGAZINE regrouped to make their best album ‘The Correct Use Of Soap’ produced by Martin Hannett. While notable for ‘A Song Under The Floorboards’, another highlight was the jittery ‘Sweetheart Contract’. With Adamson’s bass acting as the heartbeat, Formula’s shimmering keyboard lines and McGeoch’s inventive guitar turned a tale of bureaucratic romance into a post-punk masterclass.
The absolute pinnacle of the New Romantic movement, ‘Fade To Grey’ was built on a mesmerizing Moog bassline for a tune composed by Chris Payne and supplemented by Billy Currie’s ARP Odyssey. With lyrics and topline later added by Ure, it was elevated by Brigitte Arendt’s spoken words en Français while the song built to a climax of cinematic grandeur.
Available on VISAGE album ‘Visage’ via Universal Music Group
Following his formal departure from MAGAZINE and VISAGE, John McGeoch joined SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES who despite being more guitar-oriented, had been popular on the dancefloor of The Blitz Club. ‘Spellbound’ was a tour de force of urgent acoustic and electric strumming and intense gothic imagery. But sadly McGeoch would later have a nervous breakdown and would depart in late 1982 for THE ARMOURY SHOW.
Available on SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES album ‘Juju’ via Universal Music
By MAGAZINE’s fourth album ‘Magic, Murder & The Weather’, John McGeoch had departed. On the art reggae of ‘The Great Man’s Secrets’, Barry Adamson’s inventive basslines remained an anchor while the mystery continued via Howard Devoto’s enigmatic vocal expression and Dave Formula’s expressive, swirling keyboard textures. The song’s artful structure and tense atmosphere reflected the strong musicianship contained within.
German music formed a large part of the music at The Blitz Club and even Irish rocker Phil Lynott frequented it. ‘Yellow Pearl’ was a LA DÜSSELDORF inspired co-composition with Ure, while Rusty Egan later played drums on the remix which became the ‘Top Of The Pops’ theme. With ‘Yellow Pearl’ demonstrating how the VISAGE blueprint was penetrating the mainstream, it was almost forgotten that this was the frontman of THIN LIZZY!
Available on the THIN LIZZY album ‘Greatest Hits’ via Universal Music
With the glorious ‘Again We Love’, every aspect of VISAGE’s collective talents clicked in unison, both vocally and instrumentally. From the dramatic start and the eerie atmospheric melancholy to the stupendous percussive climax and echoey fade, this was probably the song that got closest to recapturing the grandeur of ‘Fade To Grey’. Something of an almost forgotten jewel, Midge Ure performed it on his 2026 ‘A Man Of Two Worlds’ tour.
Available on VISAGE album ‘The Anvil’ via Cherry Pop
Taking a break from ULTRAVOX and have left VISAGE, Midge Ure hit the UK Top 10 with his cover of ‘No Regrets’; THE WALKER BROTHERS version has been played at The Blitz Club. On the B-side was the beautifully eerie instrumental ‘Mood Music’. Driven by a LinnDrum and stark piano notes before being joined by haunting gothic choirs in the chorus, the track conjured up images of abandoned theatres just as ‘Vienna’ had done.
Available on the MIDGE URE boxed set ‘The Gift’ via Chrysalis Records
VISAGE were in a state of limbo following the departure of Midge Ure. But with John Luongo who had remixed ‘Night Train’ involved in a production association, Steve Strange, Rusty Egan, Billy Currie and Dave Formula plus new bassist Steve Barnacle explored the sound of New York electro. ‘Pleasure Boys’ was hard and aggressive with lyrics full of hedonism. But by now, the New Romantic audience had moved on.
Somewhat of a curio backed by Warner Brothers, Rusty Egan produced and arranged this cover of ‘The Twilight Zone’ with assistance from Fairlight programmer JJ Jeczalik of THE ART OF NOISE. While it was packed with a relentless electronic pulse, futuristic sound effects and orchestrated stabs, it lacked a tight arrangement. But turning a haunting jingle into an extended dance track was always going to be a challenge.
By the ‘Beat Boy’ album, the original collective had dissolved, leaving just Strange and Egan at the helm. Recruiting guitarist Andy Barnett, the resultant album was a collection of overlong turgid rock. Featuring saxophone by Gary Barnacle who had played on ‘Night Train’, the one saving grace was ‘Love Glove’. A pretty song which conversely featured metaphors about fisting, it harked back to the more cinematic songs on ‘The Anvil’.
Available on the VISAGE album ‘Beat Boy’ via Cherry Pop
Despite VISAGE imploding, Steve Strange still fancied himself as Billy Idol. So STRANGE CRUISE was set up for him to fully exploit a Trans-Atlantic pop-rock sound away from the New Romantic bubble he had been associated with, as exemplified by the single ‘Rebel Blue Rocker’. However, as with the ‘Beat Boy’ album, Strange’s voice was left vulnerable and exposed without Midge Ure’s production and coaching.
Originally on the STRANGE CRUISE album ‘Strange Cruise’ via EMI Records, currently unavailable
After the demise of ULTRAVOX, Billy Currie released his first solo album proper ‘Transportation’. One of its key tracks ‘India’ saw Currie collaborate with former SIMPLE MINDS bassist Derek Forbes. The instrumental track actually began life in 1986 for the aborted WORLD SERVICE side project but the end result was a satisfying energetic adventure that combined the musical signatures of ULTRAVOX and SIMPLE MINDS.
Originally on the BILLY CURRIE album ‘Transportation’ via No Speak, currently unavailable
STEVE STRANGE & VISAGE MARK 2 Diary Of A Madman (2007)
Steve Strange had been performing VISAGE songs on the Here & Now revival tours so he created a “Mark 2” version of VISAGE with Ross Tregenza, Sandrine Gouriou, Steven Young and Rosie Harris. The line-up produced by just song ‘Diary Of A Madman’ which was co-written with Tregenza and co-produced Dave Formula. Rawer than the lush cinematics of classic VISAGE, it was available as a digital download in return for donations to Children in Need.
Originally released as a download single in aid of Children In Need, re-recorded version available as ‘Diaries Of A Madman’ on the VISAGE album ‘Hearts & Knives’ via Blitz Club Records
Continuing his ‘Sweetheart Contract’ if via satellite, ‘Satellite Sweetheart’ was perhaps unbelievably Dave Formula’s first solo album. Conceived around his childhood memory of seeing Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin at the Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers in Manchester, opener
‘Elvis In Space’ was a Latin jazz instrumental track in tribute to the first man in space with Formula in stellar form on organ and synth.
The classic hit line-up of ULTRAVOX reunited in 2009 and things had gone well enough to record a new album ‘Brilliant’. An optimistic message of intent to be savoured, the opening song ‘Live’ was ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’ without the imminent nuclear holocaust! The instrumental breakdown, which dropped to a magnificent pulsing sequence, piano and lone bass drum before the climax, was pure LA DÜSSELDORF.
Available on the ULTRAVOX album ‘Brilliant’ via Eden Recordings/EMI Records
While the ULTRAVOX reunion was in full swing, the VISAGE one kept stopping and starting with Rusty Egan eventually leaving due to creative differences. An album featuring a new line-up including Steve Barnacle, Robin Simon and vocalist Lauren Duvall was completed although much of it was underwhelming. It wasn’t all bad and ‘Shameless Fashion’ sounded like it could have been one of the better tracks off ‘Beat Boy’.
Available on the VISAGE album ‘Hearts & Knives’ via Blitz Club Records
When Steve Strange and Rusty Egan were mooting a VISAGE reunion, Midge Ure had declined to take part but was persuaded by Egan to “loan” a song that could be worked on. That turned out to be ‘Become’ which would ultimately appear on Ure’s 2014 album ‘Fragile’. While the VISAGE version would not appear until the year after and was inferior, it highlighted more what could have been with this elegant piece of art pop.
STEVEN JONES & LOGAN SKY featuring STEVE STRANGE Corrupt State (2017)
Recorded shortly before his tragic passing, this collaboration paired Steve Strange with latter day VISAGE keyboard player Logan Sky and singer Steven Jones. From the album of the same name, ‘Corrupt State’ was a moody minimal synth track with a biting political edge. Delivered over haunting layers of Pan-European electronic textures, Strange’s vocals came over stark and desolate in contrast to the mannered tones of fellow Welshman Jones,
Available on the STEVEN JONES & LOGAN SKY album ‘Corrupt State’ via Etrangers Musique
MIDGE URE & RUSTY EGAN Glorious – Single mix (2019)
Initially a sketch co-written with Chris Payne for what became Rusty Egan’s ‘Welcome To The Dancefloor’ project, as with ‘Fade To Grey’, Midge Ure added lyrics and a topline to ‘Glorious’, bringing the VISAGE story full circle. Remixed for his ‘Soundtrack 1978 – 2019’ collection, the track was polished up and given space for Ure’s vocals to soar. Despite the decades that had passed, the spirit of The Blitz Club remained as vital as ever.
Established on 15th March 2010, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK celebrates 15 years online.
Aiming to feature the best in new and classic electronic pop music, during that time it has conducted over 550 interviews from fledgling independent acts and veteran cult artists to established international stars.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK prides itself in asking interesting questions that are a bit different and seeded by knowledge of the subject. As a result, these interviews have been appreciated by those music enthusiasts who know their tape recorders from their drum machines.
As for the interviewees, the vast majority have been a joy to work with and luckily, boring or difficult interviews have been rare. However, the most disappointing situations arise when someone agrees to an interview and continues communications for several weeks but doesn’t come clean to say they are not actually interested in participating… it is the interviewing equivalent of being ghosted 😆
Photo by Rob Harris
While sending questions via email for an artist to answer in their own time is the modern way of conducting an interview and is convenient with artists who have day jobs, don’t speak English as a first language or are in a different time zone, it is not particularly interactive and lacks a conversational flow. A true interview is a two way live conversation conducted face-to-face, by phone or a conferencing platform where opinions, thoughts and recollections can be obtained through reactive questioning.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK lists its 25 favourite interviews from over the years. Reading like a ‘Who’s Who?’ of electronic pop, all the interviews were conducted in-person or via a live call, except those with Alan Wilder, Karl Bartos and Rob Dean which were done by email.
PAUL HUMPHREYS (2010)
This Paul Humphreys interview put ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK on the map. At his studio complex in London, he chatted about the past, present and future of OMD, hinting at the contents of the upcoming album ‘History Of Modern’. The interview proved popular and was later quoted by The Guardian in a feature about OMD. This was the first of five interviews, the most recent of which was for OMD’s 40th Anniversary in 2019.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK bumped into Sarah Blackwood after a HEAVEN 17 concert in Cologne and so began a long lasting friendship. Conducted at a café in St Pancras, this interview captured an interesting interregnum with our heroine between the end of CLIENT and the start of the DUBSTAR reunion. This was to be the first of two Sarah solo chats while she would be interviewed with Chris Wilkie twice as DUBSTAR.
Conducted in London to coincide with the reissue of her debut solo album ‘Love: And A Million Other Things’, Claudia Brücken talked about her time in PROPAGANDA, ACT and ONETWO while she also talked about plans for a compilation called ‘ComBined’ collecting highlights from throughout her career. Her most recent ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK interview was together with Susanne Freytag as xPROPAGANDA.
The majority of interviews are cordial affairs but this one with Andy McCluskey following the release of OMD’s comeback album ‘History Of Modern’ was a bit ‘Frost/Nixon’. ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK echoed some of the fan disappointments about the record and to his credit, he was unrepentant and batted away criticisms with aplomb. A less confrontational interview followed in 2013 for ‘English Electric’.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were surprised when a request to interview Stephen Morris was accepted, especially as NEW ORDER had seemingly disbanded. The conversion had The Human Drum Machine at his best with stories about JOY DIVISION as well. But why was this interview taking place, why was he doing a fashion shoot for ‘Arena Homme+’? It was all subtle profile rebuilding as NEW ORDER was relaunched months later!
With many discussion points covered, a thoroughly entertaining hour was spent chatting to Neil Arthur in his studio during a break from rehearsals for the first BLANCMANGE live shows since 1986 in support of a new album ‘Blanc Burn’. The artist who has been interviewed the most times by ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, he has since been featured a further nine times including with his side projects FADER and NEAR FUTURE.
The intelligent aesthetics of MIRRORS made them ideal for ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s first interview using the Vintage Synth Trumps format. Conducted in the dressing room of Cologne’s Gebaude9 prior to the first show of their headlining German tour, James New and Ally Young chatted about the synths used on their ’Lights & Offerings’ album. But tension was evident between the pair and it ultimately led to the sad end of the band.
While often reluctant to talk about DEPECHE MODE, when Alan Wilder auctioned off a large collection of his studio equipment, vinyl and memorabilia, he was ready to talk about the band he left in 1995 again as well his own musical venture RECOIL. For the 25th Anniversary of the release of the ‘101’ live album and documentary film in 2014 , ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK was the only platform he granted an interview to.
One of the nicest guys in the music business, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK had the pleasure of chatting to Howard Jones about his then-upcoming tour performing his first two albums ‘Human’s Lib’ and ‘Dream Into Action’. Focussing on the period between 1983 to 85 when he became a household name and was many people’s entry point into the world of synthpop, the interview included lots of analogue and digital synth talk.
A short conversation conducted remotely, Karl Bartos talked about his new album ‘Off The Record’ and recalled his collaborations with Andy McCluskey, Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr. When he performed at Cologne’s Live Music Hall on the same night that KRAFTWERK received a Lifetime Achievement Grammyin January 2014, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were granted an audience with the man himself.
The album ‘the minutes’ saw the return of Alison Moyet to electronica and this inevitably led to reminiscences about YAZOO in this delightful and sweary interview conducted face-to-face in Islington. She was frank and open about all aspects of her career, the misconception of her being a “jazz singer” and which two songs from the YAZOO portfolio she particularly hated! Can you guess without look at the transcript which ones they are?
VILE ELECTRODES remain the act that ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has been proudest of featuring. Invited to support OMD on the German leg of their ‘English Electric’ tour following Andy McCluskey spotting the band while perusing ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, this informative interview was conducted in Anais Neon and Martin Swan’s synth-filled apartment and completed online to update it after the news was announced.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were literally given a few days notice that it was to interview Gary Numan at his home in Los Angeles by phone. Coinciding with the release of the ‘Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)’ album which had taken 7 years to complete, he was in buoyant mood after an artistic rejuvenation. Refreshingly honest, he admitted his original plan to make all the songs on ‘Splinter’ one-dimensional was “a sh*t idea”!
One of the fun things about the Vintage Synth Trumps series of interviews is that there is a degree of jeopardy for both interviewer and artist. Taking time to gain acclaim and recognition, the first Rodney Cromwell album ‘Age Of Anxiety’ was perfect for mainman Adam Cresswell to talk about his love of synths and DIY recording as well as the influence of NEW ORDER and SECTION 25 on his music over a fish supper in London’s Soho.
It was known that Richard Barbieri is often not that keen on talking about JAPAN and ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK assumed all the chat over the phone would be about his new album ‘Planets + Persona’. But unprompted, he chatted about his MicroMoog which was used on a number of JAPAN albums. But the crowning glory of the interview was how he did the metallic intro of ‘Ghosts’ using his Roland System 700 Lab Series.
While not as well-known as Giorgio Moroder or Conny Plank, producer Zeus B Held contacted ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK after it did a Beginner’s Guide feature on his career portfolio. A coffee meeting was arranged at Foyles bookshop in London and morphed into a full interview which saw the talkative German reflect back on working with GINA X PERFORMANCE, FASHION and DEAD OR ALIVE as well as John Foxx and Gary Numan.
When in Düsseldorf… despite the confrontational aspects of DAF, their drummer and sequencer programmer Robert Görl is something of a thoughtful and spiritual soul. This face-to-face interview was conducted before a performance of his ‘Glücksritter’ live only project and took in DAF, his wonderful solo debut long player ‘Night Full Of Tension’, working with Annie Lennox and the great standalone single ‘Mit Dir’.
Marc Almond and Dave Ball surprised all with a reunion for ‘One Night Only’ at London’s O2 Arena that has since become an ongoing world tour. But with it came a lavish boxed set, various books and new albums. In a London pub, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK had an in-depth chat with Dave Ball focussed on the ups and downs of SOFT CELL. This was followed up with an entertaining game of Vintage Synth Trumps in 2023.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has enjoyed seven interviews with Martyn Ware encompassing HEAVEN 17 and BEF, but this chat was about his time as a co-founder member of THE HUMAN LEAGUE to coincide with a live celebration of their first two albums ‘Reproduction’ and ‘Travelogue’. This was a fascinating insight into how THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s “vocals and synthesizers only” sound became the future of pop music.
Although he left JAPAN in 1980, guitarist Rob Dean gave an eye witness account to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK into the making of their third album ‘Quiet Life’ to coincide with a remastered boxset. JAPAN were in a state of transition from the growly glam funk of their first records to the mannered artful combo people remember them for today, so with him now residing in Costa Rica, this email Q&A provided some insightful commentary.
While most of ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s interviews with Our Man In Berlin have been conducted remotely at his convenience, apart from an onstage interview at a 2016 event in Düsseldorf, this Vintage Synth Trumps chat was a rare live outing on Skype. Among the topics were his remixes for NEW ORDER and YELLO while there was also mention of the Transcendent 2000 which Bernard Sumner had built from a kit and given to him.
With his noted dry humour, Billy Currie was on top form for probably the best interview in the Vintage Synth Trumps series so far. With insight into the workings of ULTRAVOX and VISAGE as well solo work and his brief time in the Gary Numan live band. Of the latter, Currie went into detail about the ARP Odyssey solo on ‘On Broadway’ while also shedding light on how ‘Touch & Go’ co-written with former band mate John Foxx became ‘Mr X’.
Some say that the Belgians don’t have a sense of humour, but that was proved wrong when surviving TELEX members Michel Moers and Dan Lacksman gave a laugh a minute interview to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK in support of their self-titled boxed set released by Mute Records. The most hilarious moment was when the pair recalled their dismay when Portugal awarded them 10 points at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has had the honour of interviewing Midge Ure on a number of occasions, the first time at the world famous Abbey Road Studios. But the most recent occasion was the best where he discussed a life in music ahead of his 70th birthday and a special show at the Royal Albert Hall. This was an extensive chat which included music technology such as the PPG Wave and the Roland GR700 guitar synthesizer.
With ‘Metamatic’ about to celebrate its 45th Anniversary, it was a perfect time for ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK to chat to John Foxx about his close encounters with synthesizers over a game of Vintage Synth Trumps in Düsseldorf, the spiritual home of modern electronic pop. As well as talking about his seminal debut solo album, he recalled how ULTRAVOX came to utilise synths and drum machines in their music.
While Gary Numan is often seen as the synthesizer’s first major pop star, his biggest influence was the first incarnation of ULTRAVOX! lead by John Foxx.
Following that self-titled 1977 debut with tracks co-produced by Brian Eno like ‘My Sex’, ULTRAVOX! gradually increased their use of synthesizers as part of a sound that stood out at the height of punk. The leadlines and soloing on ‘The Man Who Dies Every Day’ from their second album ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ demonstrated how powerful and fierce synths could be.
After the third album ‘Systems Of Romance’ in 1978 produced by Conny Plank which spawned standout moment such as ‘Slow Motion’, ‘Quiet Men’ and ‘Just For A Moment’, the technology had become so affordable and straightforward to use that Foxx saw he could realise his future musical vision without a band. Using just synths and drum machines with occasional bass guitar, the end result was the seminal 1980 debut solo album ‘Metamatic’ engineered by Gareth Jones. “It was minimal, primitive technopunk” said Foxx, “Car crash music tailored by Burtons”
For a short period with singles like ‘Underpass’, ‘No-One Driving’ and ‘Burning Car’, John Foxx became an unlikely pop star in his grey suit with Top40 hits, appearances on ‘Top Of The Pops’ with a band all equipped with Yamaha battleship keyboards and a previously unreleased track from the ‘Metamatic’ sessions ‘My Face’ given away free on a flexidisc attached to the front cover of ‘Smash Hits’ magazine.
Despite what appeared to be a long hiatus between 1986 to 1990 which can now be seen as nothing by today’s standards, John Foxx has been extremely prolific in his solo work and collaborations with the likes of Tim Simenon, Louis Gordon, Jori Hulkkonen, Jim Jupp, Robin Guthrie, Theo Travis, Steve D’Agostino, Steve Jansen, the late Harold Budd and his main partner-in-crime during the 21st Century Ben ‘Benge’ Edwards aka THE MATHS.
John Foxx is not just known for his music but he is also an esteemed visual artist. He recently published a 224 page book ‘Electricity & Ghosts’ collecting reproductions of the varied artistic media he has worked in, including drawing, photography, painting, graphic art, sculpture and collage. Created in collaboration with Grammy award winning graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook, it includes a unique first-person narrative of his early college artworks and the creation of ULTRAVOX! which was initially conceived as an art project.
With ‘Metamatic’ soon to celebrate its 45th Anniversary, this was the perfect time for ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK to chat to John Foxx about his close encounters with synthesizers through the years over a game of Vintage Synth Trumps in Düsseldorf, the spiritual home of modern electronic pop.
Photo by Chi Ming Lai
OK John, the first card is a Sequential Circuits Pro-One… had you ever used much equipment from them before?
Not personally no, but Duncan Bridgeman who played on ‘The Garden’ album did. There were some very fine sounds he came out with.
On ‘The Garden’, there was a lot more of a band sound like on ‘Dancing Like A Gun’ and ‘Walk Away’, so were they shaped by jamming together?
I’d bring the song in and play it, then Duncan and Jo Dworniak who is a great bass player, together with Robin Simon from ULTRAVOX! So we’d get together and go through the song a couple of times and then record it.
Duncan Bridgeman and Jo Dworniak were from this Britfunk band I-LEVEL, so how did you come across them?
It was in the studio, I’d heard them recording and thought “these guys are good” so I had a chat with them and it turned out they knew about my music and particularly liked the song ‘Metal Beat’ because it wasn’t regular time, it wasn’t “funky” but it had a broken up rhythm and they enjoyed that. So we got together to try out a few songs and it worked really well.
Next card and it’s a Korg 770…
I liked Korg stuff, a lot of people used it. I had some Korg keyboards although I preferred Roland. THE HUMAN LEAGUE had quite a bit of Korg and profited greatly from it. I remember having a conversation with Martyn Ware about the early synths they got, his first one was a Korg I understand…
The affordability of Korg made things more accessible so could you see a wave of creativity coming with these cheaper synths?
Yes! Because much earlier, the first people I knew who got a synthesizer were GLORIA MUNDI from which Eddie and Sunshine came. Sunshine bought a synthesizer and she put that through an amplifier, it was a knockout sound, so I thought “I’ve got to get one of those!”. It was that which started my interest in actually buying one. This was before ULTRAVOX! had recorded anything.
Did the rest of ULTRAVOX! need much persuading at the time to get into synths and technology?
Not really, Chris Cross particularly was great at getting hold of synths, Billy Currie did it slightly later because we needed to spend more money and we didn’t have any. I remember suggesting to Warren Cann about getting involved is using a drum machine and when he got to grips with it, he really enjoyed it, this was when we were recording ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’. I asked him to switch in rhythms live which he did really well as I played guitar and sang it. That was the beginning of it.
You mentioned Eddie and Sunshine earlier and they did your first ‘Top Of The Pops’ appearance with you… this was visually significant because they all had big Yamaha CS80s. Although they weren’t actually on ‘Underpass’, did you have to hire those in?
No, I couldn’t afford to! The BBC kindly did it for us, they didn’t actually ask us, they planted these things there because they looked good. I use one now because Benge has one, I don’t know how much he paid for it, something like £5 I think but it’s worth a fortune now because it’s one of the most complex synths ever made!
Next is a Roland SH101, did you ever own one?
I have used a 101 but triggered with a rhythm to make bass parts. It was very useful for that but I never used it for anything else… I sold it after I used it which was foolish! I did that quite often!
They’re worth quite a bit now!
I know! Everything I sold is worth quite a bit now! *laughs*
Obviously working with Benge, he has massive synth armoury but when you owned The Garden studio, did you have a stash of synths for artists who hired it used?
They usually brought their own stuff although I did have quite a collection by that time. I particularly loved the Jupiter 8 and I didn’t want anybody to touch it! But when Matt Johnson of THE THE came in, he surreptitiously took it out of the store room and started using it. He had a really great time with it apparently but I didn’t mind, it’s what happens in studios! *laughs*
Ah, the next card is a Korg Poly 6, I seem to recall when you started working with Benge that you quite liked the Korg Mono/Poly?
Yes, although it’s not that I favour one synth over another, some are appropriate for what you are doing. Benge is usually the one who says “let’s try this one” and I’ll try a few synths out and one will sound right. There’s no particular favouritism going on, far from it, you just want the right sound.
You have the 45th anniversary of ‘Metamatic’ coming out and there’s a new vinyl remaster??
Yes, we’re trying to digitise the old tapes but we might have re-digitise it because digitisation changes in quality over the years, so it’s better now than it has been.
A lot of the stuff that was in the ‘Metamatic’ vaults is out now but is there anymore left?
Well, there are lots of bits because Gareth Jones and I used to put things down at the end of tapes to see if we got a good sound, you could never get the same sound back again. So we put things down like drum machine and processing though flangers and phasers and all that, sounds on the ARP or whatever sounded interesting to remind ourselves what we were doing because quite often when you’re making sounds, you don’t get to the sound you want but halfway there, something interesting happens so you want to keep it, but you still need to go on get to the sound you want. So there are lots of moments like that which we recorded.
Another card and it’s the EMS VCS3… as a youngster, did that fascinate you seeing it being used on the telly?
Oh yeah, Brian Eno had one when we were in the studio with him and Chris Cross enjoyed playing with that, I think he used it on ‘My Sex’ for one of the parts. So he later bought the compact AKS suitcase version, that was the first synth we got so that’s the memory of that one. Eno used it extensively on all his records like ‘Another Green World’, it was a great record, I thought it was like a new kind of jazz, it was non-conventional jazz, it was kind of freeform music. There were pieces on that record like ‘Sky Saw’ which even now sounds tremendous. And ‘Becalmed’ is a lovely track so it was the beginning of Eno finding his feet properly in the studio, moving away from rock ‘n’ roll into something else.
Now ‘Another Green World’ was notable for being half vocal – half instrumental and paved the way for similarly structured albums like David Bowie’s ‘Low’, is that something you would ever consider in your future works?
No, I don’t like mixing the two. I think they should be separate because I don’t think albums should be like a variety show. I think they should set a mood or a world that you go into, and I don’t want any disturbance in that.
That’s an interesting answer…ok, final card and it’s an EDP Wasp…
Ah yeah, Wasps, great fun! I used to borrow one because lots of people had them. I knew where to borrow things from. You can get some beautiful sounds from them.
Photo by Chi Ming Lai
You have this book ‘Electricity & Ghosts’ out compiling your graphic designs, what was the idea behind this?
Like all these things, when I pop my clogs, it’ll all get shuffled into the dustbin if I don’t do anything with it! And it’s as simple as that really!
Your visual art uses a lot of collage like the artwork for the ULTRAVOX! singles ’Slow Motion’ and ‘Quiet Men’. Leading up to your third solo album ‘The Golden Section’, the preceding singles ‘Endlessy’ and ‘Your Dress’ had collage art but for the album cover, you opted for a striking portrait photo taken by the late Brian Griffin, what was your thinking behind that?
It was just me trying to look my best, I was trying to look good! *laughs*
Was the photo intended for the cover or was it you had the photo taken for some other purpose and you liked it?
No, I wanted it to be like that and I already had the name ‘The Golden Section’. I thought “what can I do visually for that?” and then I realised I could do it with Brian Griffin because he used tungsten lighting in his photography and I’d used a lot of it, so it gave you that very rich “golden” effect. I felt it would be right so I had a word with Brian and he said yes.
Photo by Chi Ming Lai
Finally, your favourite synth of all time and why?
Oh, the ARP Odyssey… it’s the best noise making little brute you can ever come across. I still haven’t exhausted it, I’ve been using it for 50 years now and it still surprises me.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to John Foxx
Special thanks to Steve Malins at Random Management
‘Metamatic’ is released as a 45th anniversary a grey vinyl edition on 17 January 2025, pre-orders through the Official Store will include a limited edition signed print of the album artwork at https://johnfoxx.tmstor.es/product/152300
ULTRAVOX founder member Billy Currie is the classically trained maestro who declined a place at London’s Royal Academy of Music in order to follow a dream of becoming a rock musician.
He was also in TUBEWAY ARMY when Gary Numan made his first TV appearances on ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ and ‘Top Of The Pops’ in 1979, as well as being part of ‘The Touring Principle’ concert extravaganza.
Although ULTRAVOX have released 11 studio albums since 1977 with John Foxx, Midge Ure, Tony Fenelle and Sam Blue as front men, the instrumental constant on synthesizers, piano, violin and viola throughout has been Billy Currie.
Although his most high profile period was in the Midge Ure fronted incarnation of ULTRAVOX, this might not have happened had Currie and Ure not met while working together on VISAGE; together with Dave Formula, John McGeoch and Barry Adamson from MAGAZINE, the project had been instigated by Rusty Egan to produce synthesized dance music fronted by Steve Strange to play at The Blitz Club where he was the resident DJ. Along with Numan keyboardist Chris Payne, Currie and Ure co-wrote VISAGE’s biggest hit ‘Fade To Grey’.
The classic hit line-up of ULTRAVOX featuring Billy Currie, Midge Ure, Chris Cross and Warren Cann reunited in 2009 and released a new album ‘Brilliant’ in 2012 before winding down after a tour with SIMPLE MINDS in 2013.
Since then, Currie has been busy with his solo work, the most recent of which was 2020’s piano-based long player ‘The Brushwork Oblast’; it was released as part of a new deal with Burning Shed who will also reissue all of Currie’s solo back catalogue on CD.
Billy Currie kindly chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK over a game of Vintage Synth Trumps and chatted about his life and brilliant career in music.
These Vintage Synth Trumps cards we are using are made by GForce and you’ve worked with them haven’t you?
Back in 2003, GForce asked me to do some programme signature tunes for the ImpOSCar, since then I’ve had a relationship with them where they give me synths. Recently they asked me to look at the beta of stuff like the Oddity3. Dave Spears of GForce introduced me to Dina Pearlman of The ARP Foundation, she is doing an online “Synthposium” on 5th November and talked me into being involved, I’m one of people on the panel with Dave *laughs*
This is like Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies but with synths, when you were working with him on the first ULTRAVOX! album, did you use the cards during the creative process?
We talked about the idea but I don’t think we did… but then again, a few things happened in the studio while I wasn’t there! It’s a very distant memory that they might have *laughs*
I do remember us talking about how we should “change the atmosphere” if we got stuck, like “do this” or play football in the park, just to change things because we’ve all got a little bit blocked. Music is a thing that changes if you want to get spiritual or spacey about it, you can’t control it and all of a sudden, your frame of mind changes.
How did you find working with Eno?
It was great, I remember the first meeting in one of these slightly hippy-ish rooms that was clean but rough-matted. We’d finally signed our record deal after me doing a bum job in a warehouse for 3 years and rehearsing 4 nights a week and on Sundays… the other guys were cleaning toilets! *laughs*
Anyway, Eno walked in… I was a massive fan of ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’ and I was aware of his Obscure label, that was like “wow”, we were connected to something really special. Because we were label mates at Island and Island looked after Obscure, I could take these albums home for free. I was really taken aback by him and it was nice to sit on the floor and talk. It was a good vibe and I remember in the studio, him having his Minimoog in one corner so we were thinking DI a little bit… that was quite new to me because we were very much “a band” and I realised “oh, you can just plug a keyboard into the desk”.
It was friendly but I was knocked sideways a bit by working with him. There was a piece that me and John Foxx wrote together called ‘Slip Away’, I wrote a piece of music that he liked and then he connected it with a song that he’d written. So it went into my music with a minimalist feel to it before my mesmerising grand piano which was very classical. I was very proud of it and we laid it down like we had in rehearsals. It was like I was finding my sound because it was greys into black, that was the feeling, a bit like ‘Rage In Eden’, put a bit of reverb in it and the beautiful sound made you tingle.
So what’s the story about what happened in your absence?
While I was out of the studio, mischievous Brian Eno and Steve Lillywhite changed it and upset the applecart. Eno got his Minimoog out and on the minimalist syncopated spacey bit, he detuned that, like he’d got his destroy mode in. And when it came into my keyboards which are still in there, he did this beautiful colourful Minimoog sound that copied my top piano line and let the echo go into the next bit. So he was breaking the rules, it must have seemed a bit stiff to him what I did, so I felt he was trying to mess it up a little bit. Even at the end, there’s that “woo-woo-woo” echo coming through from that initial bit.
I wasn’t against any of it, I was finding my feet at the time so it blew my mind, but then I felt it was very colourful and I just accepted it. I mean we were going forward and we had Brian Eno producing us! But the idea of a producer was a little bit “hang on a minute” at first, I like to be in control, we were all like that, John was too but he had opened up himself to be produced which in a way, you’re kind of manipulated in some ways.
You’ve got to remember Brian Eno didn’t do that much on this debut album. But he was a lovely man and came in with this lovely food and these fantastic girlfriends, usually Swedish and that was very nice *laughs*
Were these sessions with Brian Eno the first time you were formally introduced to synthesizers?
When I was 19, I was in a band that didn’t get anywhere. I’d been coming towards keyboards in that band but they only had a Hammond organ which wasn’t my kind of thing. Our tech guy Vince had a flat in Willesden and one of the band’s that would come round to him to get their gear fixed was HAWKWIND, that was fun watching them! They brought in this oscillator box with two little joysticks on. Vince let me have a play so I sat there with headphones lifting the sound up and down, it was very basic but it had a big effect on me.
I had a go on a Mellotron in 1971, I was working with a singer songwriter called Jeff Starrs. Our manager Mark Plumber who worked for Melody Maker knew Kit Lambert who managed THE STRAWBS and we did a support gig with them. They invited me to their studio to get a demonstration of the Mellotron, Blue Weaver did it for me, a very lovely guy. This was so I could play it on Mark’s wife’s song. I produced the song and played Mellotron on it. This was in Pye Studios near Edgware Road and very state of the art at the time. Mark’s wife did not get a release with her songs. It was a fascinating experience for me though. The string sound was so unforgiving. It felt like I was sticking sellotape on the track, no touch sensitivity. It was powerful though and certainly lifted the track. It is a pity it wasn’t mine and Jeff’s music I was working on.
So the real first time was Brian Eno’s Minimoog with his funny little paintings to describe the sounds. He knew he’d blown my mind and he showed me some things that were fascinating. For the end of the album, John Foxx had the idea of ‘My Sex’… I didn’t do the synthesizer on that, I did the piano but I was watching Eno and loved the way he did the simple harmony and from that, I could see how powerful synthesizers were and that stayed with me. I like complication as well but I do love simplicity. And when Eno did another melody, exactly the same but using a major third above, I was like “F*CKING HELL”! I used to love doing that with sustained guitar like in ‘Lonely Hunter’ working with Steve Lillywhite, you would feel it in your heart. This was similar but in a different way because the sustain was on the Minimoog and you would put another harmony on the sustain, and that would be very powerful.
You got onto string machines as well?
On our demos for our first album, like ‘Dangerous Rhythm’, I was hiring things like the Elka string machine. I did try other string machines like the ARP Solina and I was like “UGH! DON’T WANT!”, the vibrato wasn’t right with my idea of strings and don’t forget, we were spending our own money then. But when I got the Elka Rhapsody, I was blown away so that’s why it’s used on ‘Dangerous Rhythm’. So that was the beginning of these melodies cutting through, I always had a problem with keyboards not cutting through in a loud band as ULTRAVOX! was at the time with the punk and new wave period.
This is interesting because what you say Eno did seems to contradict what he says about himself being a non-musician…
It was musical, but quite simple. I think Eno was pulled along a bit with us… going from major to minor, it’s not something I would have done because it was a bit bluesy, but I loved it. But yes, it was quite classical but there was dissonance inside ‘My Sex’ because he also did a another synthesizer counter-melody which goes right through it and you get this great clash which is a B Natural against a B Flat, so he was enjoying that was well. He would have seen that I was a classical musician but he knew I was in the middle of trying to create my own thing, so probably held back from completely destroying it *laughs*
So the first card is an ARP Solus, of course you are one of the main exponents of the ARP Odyssey… how did you come across it?
I was thinking about all of this, especially with the thing I’m doing with Dina Pearlman, it was a bit of luck really. I’d had a go on Eno’s Minimoog and Chris Cross hadn’t bought his one yet, that was later before ‘Systems Of Romance’. I didn’t like the look of the Minimoog with the board in front of you because I was such an egoist, I didn’t want anything covering my body *laughs*
When I was playing live, I was very aware of the physical thing, I was imagining playing it stood up and what it would look like. Someone on the grapevine suggested the Odyssey and said it was really pokey which is what I wanted. I was suffering from not having a proper piano, I didn’t like the Wurlitzer or the Fender Rhodes because they were too jazzy. So I ended up with an RMI which sounded like a piano but had this horrible sustain constantly and kept getting lost in the mix, so I wanted something that would cut through.
None of this was cheap though?
Island were throwing some money at ULTRAVOX! so we got the Odyssey and an electric Fender violin, it was just the luck of the draw and we got a good deal. But it was quite expensive, so some of the sh*t we got from the punk people was probably deserved. At first, I thought I’d made a big mistake… there was this book and these silly cutover pages to put over it to show you where to position the sliders. I tried the strings setting of course and that was laughable and then woodwinds but eventually, I told myself to stop being so cynical. I was a classical musician but I’d kicked a lot of that stuff to touch! I didn’t want to play something that sounded like a clarinet or flute!
I wanted to express myself, I’d been able to do it on the violin but it didn’t really work in a rock band because of the lack of development in the amplification of it. The Fender violin did cut through but the pick-up used to feedback and we got complaints! While practicing at home, I had this woodwind sound on the Odyssey but I may have made a mistake and it had this vibrato on it. So I had to check where it was coming from, I looked to the left where the portamento was and it was the LFO. I went “I like that” and it got wider and wider and wider. But the mathematic process of it of being exact started to appeal to me… so if you pushed it forward and it would go up, then down, push it a bit further and it would go wider. So it was doing this “wow-wow-wow-wow” thing which I thought was really good.
I was trying to work out why this machine was expressive, this was amazing and something else! I had vibrato on the violin and viola, it’s what I liked so I was drawn to this. I’d learnt violin and viola from the age of 11 and looking back, what I did with the ARP was the same, I needed something for my soul to express myself. I just loved how expressive it was.
I was also learning about the voltage control oscillator and voltage control frequency in the middle; I knew if you brought them down, you got this thing where the sound would come in from the top and then down through like ridiculous, it would blow your ears apart!
That would have been mad!
I used to do that on stage in the ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ period and you could see people wince! I would have other wacky things like in the middle section of ‘Artificial Life’, just playing completely ad-hoc, weird aggressive stuff that was reminiscent of ROXY MUSIC. It was a case of playing live and working through the process.
That would later change because I would bring these two sliders in the middle close together to be a softer sound, not so harsh. I found a way to with two fingers to slide between the two sliders with my right hand… it didn’t have touch sensitivity but doing this, I would make something like the verse of ‘Vienna’ sound, like it was touch sensitive by bringing the amplification up a bit and you could turn your other finger to bring the frequency up. It would go “woah-oooh” with a bit of filter on it!
After ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ and ‘Systems Or Romance’, I learnt certain things that I really liked for that Billy Currie sound that I got to working with Gary Numan in 1979, then VISAGE and the solo on ‘Sleepwalk’. But that was finding a sound that would cut through. You’ve got to remember that the late 70s was very volatile, if you did a gig, it was very over-the-top, very loud and very crazy as the punters were very vocal and mad. It was nice to know you were being heard! I think I fell for the rock and roll thing a little bit, trying to be as loud as possible! *laughs*
Are you a frustrated guitarist in a way?
Not really, but I did play the guitar but I’ve never really had that desire. It was the first thing I learnt with my cousin David coming over. I was always fascinated by the guitar, it was why I wanted to be in a band in the first place, listening to things like SPIRIT ‘Mechanical World’, what blew my mind was the effects on the guitar, all that phasing and flanging.
During the pre-ULTRAVOX band TIGER LILY, in the Kings Cross rehearsal room someone left an acoustic guitar. I picked it up and played it doing this spacey finger picking and John Foxx was giving me that look of “oh, he’s a clever sod!” *laughs*
When Robin Simon joined ULTRAVOX, we messed about with pedals, I was always excited by the guitar with Midge as well, and I always loved the sound he used to get.
The next card is a Korg Mono/Poly…
That’s a bit contradictory! I don’t know that one…
Have you used much Korg stuff?
I’ve used the Korg M1 in 1987-89, I didn’t use it that much. It felt a bit like with the Roland D-50, it was sold on the first two preset sounds but when you tried to get into it, I found it rather unfriendly, the sounds were very clunky. I did use it when I was doing the HUMANIA album but I found it a bit limiting because you were more like a computer programmer doing all the increments, it was the start of all that kind of stuff. I should have been used to it but I never was, you had this on the PPG which came out in 1982. All this increments stuff to change the sound? I was used to knobs and sliders.
When I was working with Tony Fenelle for the ULTRAVOX ‘Revelation’ album, when I went on the road, I bought this big Korg 01/W Pro X with a nice weighted keyboard action and 88 chunky keys. That ended up being the MIDI master keyboard in my studio. I used it on three tracks I wrote in 1995, ‘Sisters & Brothers’, ‘Leap’ and ‘Quiet Words’ which are on ‘The Keys & The Fiddle’ album, those weird piano sounds. But I replaced it with the Yamaha CP300 in 2009.
Korg has had an interesting part in my life, but not that creative somehow, I wasn’t getting enough crazy creativity from them.
You mentioned the PPG, what interested you in acquiring the Wave 2.2?
Good question, that was just looking for new stuff and we would have got it just before the ‘Quartet’ album, we bought a Waveterm with it as well… God! It cost a fortune and could feed a country!! *laughs*
What was the PPG system like to use?
I loved it and it was still eccentric so it was exciting, we used it on the ‘Lament’ album as well. I can zoom in straight to a track called ‘When The Scream Subsides’.
There’s a bit in the chorus, that’s a PPG and I’m quite proud of that but if you solo it, the thing is falling to bits, there’s all sorts of stuff going on but what comes through is this creamy bright sound. You could go mad trying to work it, you would play it in the studio and you’d like that sound.
So it was all PPG in the solo of ‘When The Scream Subsides’, that was the height of the ‘Quartet’ album for me, that crisp metally sound… I remember doing that and the late Geoff Emerick who engineering went “Nice one!” *laughs*
The 40th anniversary of ‘Quartet’ has just happened, how do you look back on the album?
Yeah, it was excellent, I enjoyed doing it, it was great working with George Martin and Geoff Emerick, such great people and John Jacobs who often never gets mentioned, me and him used to stay in Air Studios until 4am.
Then there was tour that came with it featuring the huge ‘Monument’ stage set and that massive keyboard set-up…
It was a bit crazy! *laughs*
It was really good, I was trying to get natural distortion of out the ARP Odyssey and that’s why I took to the OSCar when it appeared because it had that overdrive like natural distortion. Chris Huggett came up with it, he’s sadly no longer with us…
Is it true Chris Huggett designed the OSCar with you in mind?
Yeah! He came to show it to us while we were making ‘Lament’, “Sound 1” and what a big ego trip I was on, was based on my ARP solo sound with that slight overdrive to it. On the ‘Quartet’ tour, it was very over-the-top, I got two Martin bins with three-way crossover as my own PA. My hearing is ok but I had to lean in on the right when I was playing the ARP because that ear is not as good as the left. There were people complaining because it was so directional that they could hear only me! *laughs*
Did you actually use everything on stage?
It was a ridiculous set-up then but the biggest keyboard set-up I got was on the ‘Lament’ tour…. there was my usual but on my left, I had a Yamaha GS-1, CS-80 and the PPG but then when I turned around to the back, there was a Prophet T8 and a Yamaha DX7 on top of that… I never actually played it, it was just something to look at! *laughs*
When Chris Huggett came in to show us the OSCar, three of us bought it and they got used. Midge learnt how to use the sequencer for ‘Love’s Great Adventure’ and Chris would do some basslines with it, but we were quite critical as it wasn’t as heavy as the Minimoog. When we were doing the ‘U-Vox’ album, our famous end of (*big laugh*), he came down with his salesman Paul Wiffen and they showed us this thing that was like the Emulator, but the company all went a bit tits-up when they overdid it and went bankrupt so it didn’t happen.
Going back to the 1979 Gary Numan tour, Chris Payne mentioned that although you had tons of keyboards, several were spares?
In ULTRAVOX, there weren’t many spares but I did have a spare ARP; however if the GS-1 went down, we were absolutely knackered and we didn’t have a spare CS-80. But I remember with Gary, he made sure that there was a spare Minimoog.
On ‘The Touring Principle’, you did what many have cited as your best ever solo on a cover of ‘On Broadway’…
Yes, it was good, it was an opening… when Gary said we were doing ‘On Broadway’, I thought it was quite wacky and sounded pretty wild, I sort of just fell into it. We started writing, a combination of me, Chris Payne and Gary, I was holding down chords on the Yamaha SS-30 string machine as he was singing. There was an arrangement vibe going on and it just came about. I was always up for a solo so I might have just got ahead and done it, I was at that point then.
It was showing a bit of ‘Systems Of Romance’, like the solo on ‘Slow Motion’ but I wasn’t being let loose there. Here, I wasn’t so entrenched so I probably initiated it myself. Chris related to the arrangement so when Gary stopped singing, I would have gone onto the ARP and him onto the Polymoog with that ‘Cars’ vox humana sound.
I said “Right, that ends in F sharp major, when I start the solo on the A, we change to minor” and Gary was like “YUP!” because it was like ULTRAVOX. But Chris’ big chords were pulled back so that you could hear me, especially because he is also classically trained and a better keyboard player than me, he went much further at college on piano, I only went to Grade 4 *laughs*
I haven’t heard it in ages but I was still learning about the ARP Odyssey then… at the side of it, there was this octave thing that dropped it two bloody octaves so you had to get used to that. If you didn’t want to drop down, you’ve got to play on a different place on the keyboard, otherwise, you get lost. If you wanted to drop two octaves, then you stayed where you were.
It is a magnificent bit of playing…
I can remember building the solo and it went round quite a while, it was such a buzz live because that was the first time I’d ever got to that level of theatres. I stayed down with that whirring, that was the unison thing between the two oscillators, you played on one of them while they were in unison and you’d turn the octave switch back to normal and go up two octaves. I added a bit of portamento as well which worked and was bang on, that was lucky. But I’d learnt to do portamento, so it came right up to the note at the beginning of the bar.
But cutting to the chase, I used a bit of that solo in the middle of the solo in ‘Astradyne’. I thought “I really like playing that” so that’s why that bit of ‘On Broadway’ ended up in there, but you wouldn’t really know, It was just great fun, I loved it. I was always this kind of person who wanted to be pushed out right to the front, which is why I was never happy being the viola player, even as a lead in an orchestra, it was never enough for me. I can play in the middle of a group and look at what’s going on arrangements, but I always have to have a moment right out front. John Foxx realised that because you’ve got to be careful when you have a personality like that in a group who can p*ss people off! *laughs*
I was lucky when the next line-up came together because working with Midge, he knew what kind of person I was because we’d worked together in VISAGE, so I had to be let loose. It was the same with Midge, he was the kind of guy who could stay a bit back which was really good, and he’d accompany me nicely on the keyboards and guitar, those nice Strat guitar chords. And of course, he had his time at the front with his guitar.
You used a bit of the end of ‘On Broadway’ on a solo track called ‘Matsang River’ from ‘Accidental Poetry Of The Structure’ which has just been reissued on Burning Shed, are you signed to them or are they licencing your material?
It’s a label run by musicians for musicians founded by Tim Bowness, so they know how het up we all get when we see a contract put in front of us, heart attack material and fights for months! So they don’t do that at all, it’s a gentlemen’s agreement. I like it and that’s that, we split everything equally, 50/50. So far it’s been working really good and I just like the people.
That ‘Matsang River’ thing, I was going to call that ‘Off Broadway’ but I thought that would be too obvious. I called it ‘Matsang River’ because I was interested in the Tibet problem with China.
When I finished that ‘On Broadway’ solo, I got into a Rick Wakeman position of playing the ARP and leaning across to the right and playing something on the Yamaha SS-30 string machine at the same time… I used to like doubling melodies and even on our first ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ playing ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’, I was doing that, playing two keyboards. I did a bit of playful ad-lib before it ended so I thought why not just use that.
So with this solo album reissue series, are you going in reverse chronological order? Like when is your first solo record ‘Transportation’ likely to come out again?
About 2052! *laughs*
We are going backwards but I am looking forward to reissuing ‘Transportation’. I will be doing ‘Still Movement’ next week when I’ve done my VAT!
‘Airlift’, the opening track on ‘Transportation’ is like “Yes, I’m free! This is me and this is what I can do”, was it an emotional release after the ‘U-Vox’ debacle?
It’s nice to hear Chi that you’re picking up on that, I know it’s a bit obvious but it was a long time ago. So yes, that’s what it was and it’s got some nice PPG on it, that has a nice roughness about it. The piano is a Technics PX-1…
Didn’t you use that on the ‘U-Vox’ tour? *laughs*
Yeah! You remember that! Did it not sound so good? *laughs*
I didn’t think the Technics was as good as your Yamaha piano…
… that’s because it didn’t have that natural string expansion… yes, it was a bit trite sounding, I hung onto it but got rid of it when those nice little boxes that you could MIDI to your keyboard came out, I used one of the ‘Unearthed’ album.
With ‘Airlift’, there’s a whole raft of keyboards. The solo at the beginning was a jazzy brass thing like a soprano sax, that was played with the first Akai 8-bit sampler, not even 16 bit! It was great to do that album, MIDI was a big thing there, I had the Prophet 2000, ULTRAVOX’s old Waveterm, an Oberheim, I’d be linking 3 or 4 sounds together, it what you did at that time.
I did start a solo album in early 1983 which I had to abandon when we took the ‘Quartet’ tour to America, it later made up what became ‘The Keys & The Fiddle’…
The next card is an EMS VCS3…
EMS, yes Chris Cross had one around the time of ‘Systems Of Romance’; it was the Synthi AKS with the blue touchpad keyboard and he used it for basslines before he had the Minimoog. It was troublesome to keep it in tune, so that was 10 out of 10 for tenacity for doing that. I particularly remember it when we went over to America when he was let loose with that, he never knew quite what was going to be coming out of it, a bit like an Eno gig.
There was a track called ‘Radio Beach’ which we played but never recorded, Chris loved chaos more so than me, I would be playing this sound on the ARP to this glam beat, the Americans seemed to love it. At the end, Chris would set his AKS free so there were all these crazy sounds. There was also ‘He’s A Liquid’ and ‘Touch & Go’ which John Foxx later recorded.
So ‘Touch & Go’ and ‘Mr X’, were they basically the same song that went into two directions?
Yes, we rehearsed at a studio in Kingsway and recorded ‘He’s A Liquid’ and ‘Touch & Go’ playing them live. I knew that John was going to record them both which annoyed me a bit because that’s how things were. But I knew he was not the type of person who would get into litigation, so if he was going to record ‘He’s A Liquid’ which I did write a bit of, especially that descending bit in the middle, then I thought I’d have the melody from ‘Touch & Go’ which I didn’t write much of. I knew he wouldn’t do anything about it because me and John got on, he understood me and I understood him. It was lucky but we just didn’t want to go down that route. It was also good how he let the ULTRAVOX name carry on, not mentioning other people who wouldn’t let it carry on! *deep laugh*
How involved did you get with the recent ‘Rage In Eden’ boxed set and the Steve Wilson remixes?
I fully got involved with Dermot James at Chrysalis, they are doing a great job and he is very thorough. He wanted me to go up to Steven Wilson’s studio to go over a few things, like ‘The Ascent’, Dermot had done his homework and knew I’d written it. I must admit, I was a bit nervous about it because I’m not always that good at getting right involved in something from years ago.
You’ve got this thing where it’s almost like opening up ghosts. But there’s another side to me which is adventurous. Steven Wilson lives near me and is a nice guy, he has a lovely studio. I sat and watched what was going on there as it was going through Logic. I saw what he was doing with ‘The Ascent’ and he kept my original piano which I was pleased about. I thought it was interesting the way he accented the theme and I knew from the music he does that he would be quite interested in certain things like that and ‘Stranger Within’ where Chris and Warren came up with something that was just odd in 10/4 time.
I know he’s into weird time signatures with his band PORCUPINE TREE so with ‘I Never Wanted To Begin’, I’m sure he really related to that because there’s a mad bit where I stubbornly carry on playing in 7/4 time with the violin until it meets up again on the first of the bar. Amazingly, Chris Cross played along with me musically on that one and did the ringing using a Roland sequencer. Steven Wilson will have got off on that and he did a good job, he’s not afraid of working with a violin.
Where did you see Steven Wilson’s approach as being different?
He put some space and air in places that never should be there like ‘The Thin Wall’ because it’s all very tight and controlled on our version with Conny Plank. I let go as well because it’s the second one, I was a little bit concerned when he did ‘Vienna’ but once you get through the first one, it’s OK.
We did have a bit of a mix-up because there was a version of ‘I Remember (Death In The Afternoon)’ he wanted to call work-in-progess. It was not but I came round to it as it was a rough mix that Conny had knocked up on 2 tracks that had this middle section that I wrote and I wanted to hear the keyboard parts. I backed off because I understand it’s interesting for ULTRAVOX fans to hear it now as a work-in-progress. I remember thinking “f**king hell, it’s driving me nuts!” because it sounded wrong… when you make an album and keep hearing something that’s wrong, it has an effect on you, I’m very sensitive. You’re pushing through to accomplish your art, to get it past the winning post. That was the only thing I got bothered about but it is what it says, a work-in-progess.
Staying on ‘Rage In Eden’, what was it like working with the late Conny Plank because ULTRAVOX did 4 albums with him?
Yeah, it was good working with Conny Plank… a lot of people forget he did the ‘U-Vox’ album, he actually came over to London and he stayed at my house in Notting Hill. The guys from KILLING JOKE came round while we were working, he was at the desk with a big joint! *laughs*
My last memory of him was saying goodbye to him in Montserrat, I drove him to the airport after the ‘U-Vox’ mixing. But it just didn’t seem right because our relationship was very strained, George Martin turned up and I think Conny was a bit under-the-cosh. He wasn’t happy, he didn’t like the SSL desk and he actually recorded some compression on the vocals of ‘All Fall Down’ which was a terrible thing to do. Conny never did that so he obviously wasn’t in the right place, we tried to remix that track. Then he went off to do that tour of South America with Dieter Moebius where he was playing Flugelhorn, he had been practising at my house and I loved it.
I actually love wind stuff, in my first band, I was playing with a sax player who also played viola. I actually got some nice sax sounds on the ARP which was instigated by Conny. Of course, they’re not real sax sounds, I wouldn’t do something so naff but the bite of it fitted in with the music like ‘Someone Else’s Clothes’ and ‘Some Of Them’ on ‘Systems Of Romance’, doing it in duophonic which had a natural distortion and was very interesting…
There’s a bit in the middle of ‘Astradyne’ where the phrasing is quite saxy…
Yeah, we were doing all these things with synthesizers, you’d make it up as you go along. Instruments exist but the synthesizer doesn’t really, it will do what it bloody well likes! *laughs*
Conny would be wide open to stuff like that, he knew exactly how to place it in the mix. I mean I wouldn’t really know but he was right tuned in there, just like when we did ‘Dislocation’. All I did was get the little box and plug it in with a sequencer and we used a clock CV from ‘Just For A Moment’; the bass drum had carried on and on and on with nothing else on so that pushed my basslines along, Eventually when the drum clocked it along, it did that powerful unsettling phrase, you can hear some really ad-hoc stuff in there where I’m making the notes by moving the slider. It’s Conny, he just got hold of it and made the echoes when John did the vocal. I remember blowing Gary Numan’s mind when I took a white label to play it at this Bowie night we were at…
How would you describe your relationship with Conny?
My relationship with Conny was very much in the fact he knew what we were doing and he was right in there, making it happen. He was psychic in a way because he was one step ahead of us when we were coming up with stuff, thinking of how it was going to work out and laying it in with everything else.
I couldn’t cope too much with stuff like talking boll*cks in the kitchen, I wasn’t very good at that and I just wanted to get on with the music… he knew me like that, but I was definitely someone you could trust. We didn’t particularly do anything sociable together even when he was staying over at my house, it was kept to business. But I don’t think he liked any other studio apart from his own near Cologne.
His head wasn’t good over in Montserrat and I think it might have been the first signs of him not being very well. He was a lovely guy, I don’t think I ever had any rows with him… but he might have made a few noises to get me to shut up sometimes if it looked like one might brew up, to remind us that we were at his place.
Time for another card and it’s the Roland Jupiter 8… now I know you were an Oberheim man, so out of those polysynths, why did you opt for an OBX rather than say, any of the Jupiters or the Sequential Prophet 5?
I liked the Prophet 5, Dave Formula had one and we used it on the ULTRAVOX B-side ‘Paths & Angles’… after that, I don’t know why I didn’t use it more. The Roland, I messed about with it but I never went down there. I liked the Oberheim, I got the sounds that I used on ‘Rage In Eden’ quite quickly, there was just some character about it which I found really eerie and quite pokey.
I remember when Chrysalis sent us the 24 track masters, it was quite mind-blowing to hear Midge’s isolated vocals on ‘Vienna’ 40 years later, that was quite interesting. But there’s things like on ‘Accent On Youth’ where the Oberheim slides up into the verse, it was so f*cking loud but Conny knew how to fit it in, now that’s good mixing! I was lucky to find that sound from the Oberheim which comes into the instrumental on ‘Accent On Youth’ and then ‘The Ascent’ which sounds like an Eastern European choir, that deep “doo-doo, doo-doo-dooh”… when I listened to it, I was like “F*CK OFF! THAT’S JUST AMAZING”, I just love it and yet when you listen to it, it’s almost a bit tacky but because you can hear the sharpness of it, it sounds like male voices. I also like the solo sound that I got for the end of ‘We Stand Alone’. It had good character but it took me a while to get into it.
I later got the Matrix 12 as well, but it didn’t fit with my head, it was all the dials and everything. I sometimes used a programmer Mel Wesson on the ‘Transportation’ album. I also used the Oberheim on the ‘U-Vox’ tour to bring some crunch into it as I was using a stack of DX7s in the TX816 modules.
Photo by Brian Griffin
Talking of male voices, how did reversing the tape of Midge from ‘I Remember (Death In The Afternoon)’ for that really eerie chorus of the ‘Rage In Eden’ title track come about?
That was excellent, it was Midge on a roll there. This was how confident we’d got by then, this was our moment, I thought “I haven’t got anything to do on this!” and the rest of the band just looked at me like “f*cking hell”. Midge came up with most of it but of course Warren and Chris were getting their stuff together. I think Midge just suggested the idea to Conny or maybe Conny suggested using a tape backwards.
It just fitted with the feel of the song, especially alongside Midge doing his Strat anthemic kind of thing, he had a way of hitting it so that he didn’t hit it too hard, it was a style he came up with, it’s not heavy.
Another card, it’s the Korg MS-20, DAF used one of these connected to a Korg Analog Sequencer on the classic stuff they did with Conny Plank like ‘Kebabträume’…
There was a lot of stuff coming out then so you’d do your own little thing because it was expensive, we only really started throwing our money around in 1981. Things were developing each month for things like that and you’d do it all different ways. HEAVEN 17 would do it a different way, talking to Martyn Ware, they’d have their own bag of tricks and keep it to themselves.
I had an ARP sequencer which I used on VISAGE ‘Blocks On Blocks’, it’s a great sound when you put it in octaves.
Talking of VISAGE, the 40th anniversary of ‘The Anvil’ happened in the Spring and some of your most underrated work is on that, I love ‘Again We Love’ and the instrumental ‘Whispers’…
‘Again We Love’ has got that middle section I did, I listened to it a few years ago, it’s got the ARP in there, after the “again we love” bit, there’s that Minimoog doing the thudding in there, it was like “yeah, we love that!”; we were also using my Roland drum machine on that album which had been doctored by our tech guy Pete Wood, I sold it to Rusty Egan.
We’d just done the ‘Rage In Eden’ album so my memories of doing ‘The Anvil’ aren’t that good because I was tired and I knew Midge was tired as well, so there were efforts to avoid friction on that album because we were so knackered. We’d had a holiday so I’m not complaining but to take on another album was really quite something! *laughs*
I have fantastic memories of ‘Whispers’, I had a lot to do with that one… we were wrapping up the album and I wrote it right near the end. I enjoyed working with John Hudson, he’d sussed out this CS-80, that melody was really nice, it was the heart pouring out…
‘Whispers’ is a track of yours that no-one talks about but it is brilliant…
Oh, thank you very much.
What about the ARP Odyssey solo on ‘The Anvil’ title track?
Oh, that’s not me, that’s Dave Formula… he had an ARP Odyssey but our sounds were very different, that’s very Dave. It was great working with him, he was so off the wall because he’s from a jazz background.
So when I wrote ‘The Damned Don’t Cry’, our faces were against to wall to come up with another ‘Fade To Grey’. So Dave did this off-the wall middle section, he was an exceptional keyboard player. He was big on the CS-80 and Prophet 5, he did the middle section of ‘Blocks On Blocks’ as well.
We gelled very well. One of the points we loosened up was when we did the backing track of ‘Night Train’. I came up with the chorus, I loved soul music when I was 15-16 and I’d heard Midge come up with some funk and soul on ‘The Horseman’… I was in the studio and I was like “what the f*ck’s he doing now?”, I thought he’d lost the plot as we were so tired… but then I was thinking “I like this”.
So was ’Night Train’ almost jammed?
Once I did that brassy chorus of ’Night Train’, before I knew it, everyone was getting round me like Barry Adamson on bass and Rusty… it’s great to play drums with Rusty, it’s very different to playing with Warren, can you imagine the atmosphere in the place? *laughs*
Often in a studio, you are just messing around, trying to get a sequencer to bloody work, so when ‘Night Train’ was coming together, I’ve just got this memory of being in a different band, the way we just slowed down a bit, went into the chorus and sped it up. There was no code, it was real time. If you listen to ‘Night Train’, it speeds up and slows down. When you’re working with a great bass player like Barry, you just know because he’s nodding and pulling silly faces, it was just so much fun to work with him, such a lunatic *laughs*
Then John McGeoch came up with a sax part and it was great to have that on, but ‘Night Train’ went into a bit more normal VISAGE in the middle eight which was Midge’s contribution, it pulled it back into being more European.
I get the impression that on ‘The Anvil’, there was more of a willingness to experiment with funkier ideas that weren’t possible to incorporate in ULTRAVOX?
Yeah, you wouldn’t do it in ULTRAVOX, but there was some frustrations creeping in a little bit. I came up with ‘I Remember (Death In The Afternoon)’ and while we were rehearsing, I wanted something with a bit of a swing to it, a bit like Steve Miller ‘Abracadabra’ because I like dance music, and Warren was like “are you having a laugh?”. It had such a hooky melody, I felt it could swing to make it more dancey but that didn’t come off and I was happy with what we ended up with. Two-thirds into ‘Rage In Eden’, you do then realise it was the right direction. But I had to be careful, Midge was on my page a little bit, we didn’t want to do anything too naff, thinking we could do soul and funk.
Another story and I’m digressing a bit here, but I remember when we went on the road, Tony Thompson from CHIC and John Taylor from DURAN DURAN came over to check me out about getting involved with this project that would have Robert Palmer singing called THE POWER STATION. I was given a time and a rehearsal place to come to, but I was in the middle of the ‘Lament’ tour and I didn’t turn up! *laughs*
Of course, the song you had with ‘Dancing…’ in the title, you couldn’t actually dance to it! *laughs*
If you analyse it now, dance to that? You’d need a pair of clogs and some sticks holding you up! *laughs*
I used to want some more dancey stuff but it went tits up in VISAGE because of that! Midge eventually left because Rusty got in this American producer John Luongo to remix ‘Night Train’. I liked it but Midge cut himself off and walked out, that caused a few ructions because I didn’t.
VISAGE was a bit of a knock-up, sometimes I forgot that because I loved it so much. But let’s face it, if you gonna get involved in it after an album from ULTRAVOX like ‘Rage In Eden’, you’re not going to just mess about are you? Otherwise you wouldn’t do it. I may have got a bit more involved than I intended to but I liked the move towards a more soulful thing.
One thing about ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’ was it got me checking out Michael Rother ‘Sonnnenrad’ which inspired it…
I know this sounds a bit arrogant, but ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’ wasn’t very hard to do for me, it was quite easy. In 1983, we were searching for a new direction and the atmosphere in ULTRAVOX wasn’t very good at all. So we were trying all these different things and I was taking a bit of a step back from writing which was unusual for me. I saw what experimental stuff was coming out and I wasn’t into the band much, I was hanging on by the coat tails really. So I thought I would go right ahead and do something which I knew the fans would love, because they would recognise it as vintage ULTRAVOX, almost going backwards and going against the grain.
At home, I had a Boyd mini-grand piano art-deco thing, that sounds a bit fancy but it was the 80s… Conny had given me this album he produced, ‘Sterntaler’ by Michael Rother. That melody on the opening track ‘Sonnnenrad’, it was very relaxing and pleasing, it was just nice … no hassle and I came up with this other thing that was doing fourths resolving to a minor which was very Michael Rother, but then the scale came right up perfectly in thirds. Then you start doing things that are quite German. I’d got used to doing this from all the touring I’d done.
So I appeared in rehearsal with this thing and Midge was like “thank f*ck you’re doing something”… I’d got the arse because I wasn’t happy with things, what had happened in VISAGE was dragged into ULTRAVOX so he was very much “bring it on!”; before I knew it, he’d got a nice feel with the guitar and quickly got the verse and it was like “Sh*t, here we go! It’s a hit!”
The way Midge went into that verse, he did a great vocal… I walked into Mayfair Studios when he was singing that and I thought “F*cking hell! He’s thrown the kitchen sink at that! Well done my son!”; I mean, after all the aggro and bad atmosphere, you’ve got to get releases and he must have doubled it about 36 times!
Final question and I’m interested because I am descended from Hong Kong immigrants, but is ‘White China’ on ‘Lament’ about the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to Communist Red China?
Yes, I think it was; I was a bit naïve and didn’t discuss it with Midge then because it really wasn’t a good time, and I thought if he was going to delve into politics, it wasn’t a good time to discuss that either. It was unfortunate but sometimes when bands work so intensely together, it doesn’t seem appropriate to ask questions, we’d always worked on this assumption that we’d get our own meanings for ourselves out of the lyrics. In the 80s line-up, it was never “it means this”; my interpretation of ‘White China’ was about Hong Kong being taken over by the British to sell illicit opium… when countries change like that, it does make you think, how does it end? It’s not good now how China is trying to make Hong Kong like the mainland, it’s a difficult situation.
What about ‘White China’ musically, it sounds like you were listening a lot to ‘Blue Monday’ by NEW ORDER!! *laughs*
Yes, it did a little bit, that was a new drum machine we’d got, the Sequential Drumtraks. Midge got that dancey triplet thing going on but ‘Lament’ was such a strange album, I don’t want to make a big deal out of it but it wasn’t a pleasant experience…
…in retrospect, the ‘Lament’ album sounds three-quarters finished…
Yes, I think it was, really we weren’t getting on too well. We might have done some more tracks if we had been! But I did like that rhythm on ‘White China’, it’s funny to think about it now because when it was being played through Warren’s monitors, that verse and the hi-hat, it sounded great. I remember Warren’s mad crew guy, he was an absolute lunatic jumping around to it! *laughs*
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Billy Currie
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