VIENNA SLICES
If you missed Midge Ure in Leicester last week, there are still two more Midlands shows to go. KEVIN COOPER heard what he had to say about his tour, Live Aid and Bob Geldof’s bad texting
I was going to ask you if you were looking forward to being back out on the road with the tour, but it appears that you never take a break.
I don’t. It’s one of those odd things… it’s like commando touring; you never know that I am out doing it unless I am playing in your town. Having said that, this tour is very much a “get out there and do a fully-fledged tour” but you are right, it really is non-stop.
You are going to be performing your fourth studio album recorded by Ultravox, Vienna. Will you be performing the album in its entirety?
I will be as close as we can get it, but I think that the idea is to get the essence of the album, and not try to replicate it note for note. There is a lot of stuff on there that is 40 years old which we do not want to replicate. We have changed the arrangements on a couple of things, a couple of the intros and a couple of little bits and pieces, but we are also not only playing the entire Vienna album, we are also looking at doing the odd B-side, perhaps something that has never been performed live ever, plus a few tracks that haven’t been played for many years.
The last time that you performed the album was on its release in 1980, so why again now? This tour is not celebrating the Vienna album as such; it is celebrating the year 1980. I have to say that, in my opinion, 1980 was such a pivotal year for music, and I don’t say that simply because I had two albums and two singles charting at the same time, with Ultravox and Visage. There was also a technological revolution happening. Of course, you could buy synthesisers well before 1980, but around about that period the Japanese manufacturers started making reasonably affordable synthesisers. So suddenly, all of this technology became accessible; drum machines, synthesisers, home recordings, all of a sudden you didn’t have to be in a studio that cost £2,000 a day, which therefore meant that you had to have a record company give you a massive advance so that you could make music. Suddenly you could start generating things at home. It really was an amazing period. Whenever you think of the sonic changes that happened then, the technological changes that happened then, the fashion changes that happened then, suddenly, bands were making video clips, and there is a whole clump of stuff that just landed within that year. For me, that was everything.
When you recorded Vienna the single, did you think that you had written and recorded something special?
No, not at all, Vienna was simply an album track. It was never meant to be any more than that. It was simply an interesting piece of music. We had recorded the entire album in just three weeks, and at the end of every long session in the studio, starting at ten o’clock in the morning and finishing at midnight or whatever, we would play a couple of tracks that we had recently recorded just to vibe ourselves up, just to think “OK, that is what we have been doing all of this hard work for” and we would listen to the playback. And, of course, every night Vienna would be one of the tracks because it had captured something which I don’t think that any of us knew just what that was, it was just something rather unique and special. And of course, when the album came out, that was a highlight song which we would play live.
It has been widely reported that when you left Ultravox in 1988 you cited both Live Aid and Band Aid as the main reasons for wanting to walk away from the music business. Is that correct?
No, I must be honest and say no, it wasn’t as deliberate as that. When I was doing Band Aid and Live Aid it took me away from the band for maybe two years. Then when I got back with Ultravox again it was like every relationship, things had changed and the dynamics had changed. I had by that time released a solo album and had been working with Mark King from Level 42, Mick Karn from Japan, Mark Brzezicki from Big Country, and I had finally had a taste of working outside of a band. So, when I got back with Ultravox again, we were all simply not thinking in the same way. That can be clearly heard on the last album U-Vox. On there we had everything from orchestrated stuff with George Martin to Celtic stuff with The Chieftains. There was even a horn section on there; we were just all over the place. Maybe, had we stuck it out we might have found our connection again, so it was partly that, and it was partly that we felt that a lot of bands were doing stuff that was kind of similar to what Ultravox had been doing. I suppose that we should have seen that as a pat on the back, seeing these people who had been influenced by what we had done, but there seemed to be a lot of bands out there who were now using synthesisers and doing the same atmospheric, textual, ambient, European music. I think that we just struggled to try and find just where Ultravox would fit into all of this. But as I said, had we bitten the bullet and seen it through, who knows what could have come out.
On the subject of Live Aid, do you have a lasting memory of the day?
That would probably be watching the other artists who all seemed to do a hell of a lot more
than I did on the day. For me it was just being there and seeing what was going on and to be in a position to watch artists who I didn’t think that I would like. I sat there thinking “oh god this is going to be rubbish. I hate this guy” or “I hate this band” and then they come on and they are just brilliant. And that is how they became as famous as they did because they are really good at what they do. So, I just sat there and watched this thing unfold. So that to me was a highlight. However, the Ultravox set I don’t really remember much about it at all. Those 18 minutes flashed by in a nanosecond. What I will tell you is that it was petrifying, not just because of the size of the crowd, but because there was no soundcheck, especially for Ultravox. We were using masses of technology which was flaky at best. We walked on and we didn’t know if the keyboards would work, if the drum machine would work, so I really do think that it was a relief towards the end, not because you had finished your set, but because it had happened, it had worked.
Is there any chance of seeing Ultravox back together again? Who knows? Warren has retired now; he is currently living out in Los Angeles looking after his dogs and stuff. No-one has really heard anything from Billy in the last couple of years, but what you have got to remember is that we spent five times longer apart than we were ever together. The idea was that Ultravox would be a project and a project where the door would be left open. But it was never “let’s get back together to rule the world musically with this band again”. It was definitely a case of dipping your toe into the water and see how it feels. So, let’s just see how it feels in the future. Whilst I would never dismiss anything, nothing is written in stone either.
This is my last question and a chance for you to dispel a few urban myths. How do you and Sir Bob Geldof get along?
Great, absolutely fine, it’s all nonsense. I have absolutely no idea where all of this stuff comes from. We are very derogatory about each other but that’s all down to camaraderie, that’s what you do. I don’t see Bob that often but when I do see him, I see the other side of Bob. I don’t get the full-faced, serious, shout you down Bob. I get the goofy big guy who I have always known, the fun character and it has always been that way. People will always look for the bad in everyone but let me tell you, there is no bad there. I tell a lie, the only bad thing about him is his bad texting. He texts in abbreviations. He texts like a five-year old and it takes me well over an hour to decipher his texts
See Midge Ure at Northampton, Royal & Derngate, on Monday, February 17, royalandderngate.co.uk, or Birmingham, Town Hall (thsh.co.uk) on Friday, February 21.