Vienna and dodgy ’80s band fashion
Former Ultravox frontman Midge Ure on surprise commercial successes, odd stage attire of yore
Midge Ure has played with seminal British bands Visage and Ultravox, as well as with Thin Lizzy and Rich Kids (with the Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock). Along with Bob Geldof, he’s one of the writers and producers of a song that has become a holiday perennial, Do They Know It’s Christmas?
But it’s his solo career that keeps the 63-year-old Scotsman on the road these days. His upcoming tour, which kicks off in Vancouver, features Ure and his band playing an expansive set list, from Ultravox’s classic Vienna to tracks from Ure’s most recent solo album, 2014’s Fragile.
Q: Vienna, one of Ultravox’s best known songs, seems now to be such a perfect expression of adolescent longing and angst. Is that how you see it?
A: There’s something wonderful about naiveté, when you’re young and you have no parameters to stay within, there are no guidelines, there are no rules. You’re young, you write something you think is interesting. It’s full of romance and angst. There’s a darkness to it. You just do it. You don’t think about it, you just create it. Then when it becomes successful, everyone wants you to do part two. You then start analyzing things. You then have a benchmark that you start looking toward and trying not to look toward. But you think, that was really successful. Do I keep within those parameters now? And it’s a constant struggle to not refer to big successful songs like that. There are many, many songs that I’ve written that I think are infinitely better. But they just haven’t had that same kind of commercial success. So, yeah, angst has a lot to do with it, naiveté has got a huge amount to do with it.
This won’t be published until after Christmas, but we’re talking just before. This must be an interesting time of year for you because there’s another song (like Vienna) that you can’t get away from once December kicks in, Do They Know It’s Christmas? It’s stood the test of time.
Well, I think it has. It was an odd song. It was written specifically for a purpose, which I’d never really done before. And I don’t think Bob (Geldof ) had, either. It was specifically put together to be successful that one Christmas to generate what we thought would be £100,000, $150,000 or something. None of us thought after its success it would keep repeating itself, that it would become an established Christmas song that would get played every single year. So, it was a really weird thing to see that part of the legacy from making the song was the song itself.
Local musician Art d’Ecco is opening for you in Vancouver. Have you heard his stuff?
I have. It’s very 80s influenced, kind of electro-rock, and in a way, he’s probably got the look of an early Steve Strange (lead singer of Visage). But the songs are incredibly good. I can see that it will be an interesting package. Speaking of looks, Visage and Ultravox had some crazy outfits in their time. Is there anything embarrassing for you?
Everything! Yeah, of course. Everyone has an old photo album, and if you dig back far enough you’re bound to get some moment where you think, “What the hell was I thinking?” The hair, the clothes, the dodgy facial hair. I have to say, compared to loads of other bands around that period, we came out reasonably unscathed. We haven’t got anything that’s really cringeworthy. We used to pride ourselves that we had no money, so we would raid the thrift shops and buy old double-breasted suits. That’s when I joined the band, and that’s what the Ultravox look kind of was. It was a bit Blade Runner — you couldn’t tell if it was set in the past or the future. Here are these guys wearing granddad’s clothes but standing behind tomorrow’s electronics . ... When my kids see photographs, they just snort and think it’s hysterical. And quite rightly so.