VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR CONQUERS THE WORLD, 1979
Horn and Buggles keysman Geoff Downes recalls custard pies, rubber gloves on TOTP and prog superbands.
Geoff Downes: “The first time the success dawned on me I was driving into Island Records’ office. I had this really clapped out Ford Escort estate I used to cart my keyboards around in. I remember the guy saying, ‘Fantastic news! It’s got to Number 1.’ I was driving back and my car broke down on Putney High Street, and I thought, Well, fuck this, I’m just going to leave it here, I’ve got a Number 1 single. I actually wanted to be famous and be on TV and in the magazines, but Trevor was a bit more reluctant to go for it – he didn’t like doing Fab 208 or Jackie magazine or Smash Hits – but even though I was more receptive to it, it was very, very strange. We did about 25-30 TV shows in Germany and Italy in a very short space of time. They thought nothing of having us, Tom Jones and AC/DC on the same bill. They’d have a couple of chicks hamming it up, dancing in the background, that kind of stuff. We did one up in the mountains somewhere once and they had us on sledges, like that bloody Last Christmas thing with Wham! They’d try and cheese it up. I used to cheese it up myself sometimes. I went on Top Of The Pops wearing a pair of rubber gloves once. On Tiswas with the Phantom Flan Flinger, I hit Trevor with a flan, sneakily. But even though we were in the pop world we were pretty serious about our music, and the main problem was that it cut into our recording time, when we were supposed to be doing an album. I think that’s ultimately why Trevor got into record production, exclusively. But before that, we both joined Yes.” TH: “Joining Yes was one of those funny things that happens. I was a big fan, and we had the same manager. Chris Squire invited me down for dinner… when I initially said I didn’t want to do it,
because I’d never be able to sing as well as Jon Anderson, Chris said, ‘You mean you’re gonna pass up this kind of an opportunity? Haven’t you got the bottle?’ The funny thing is if I hadn’t made [1980 LP] Drama with them I never would have been able to produce 90125 [1983] , which is a really good album.
Did it derail The Buggles? Totally. There was a second album [1981’s Adventures In Modern Recording], after Geoff went off to join [prog supergroup] Asia. We had a hit with a track off it called Lenny, in Europe, and that was the last thing I did, I went to Amsterdam and mimed to it with ABC playing The Buggles. When Video Killed The Radio Star was the first video on MTV in 1981, it didn’t really affect me much, because by the time it really kicked in I was producing records. Now Bruce and myself are working on The Robot Sings, a musical which will include Video Killed The Radio Star. We’ve been banging away at it
for decades. It’s only just really got to a point now where we have a script. Writing a musical is basically a flying fuck at a doughnut. You’ve got no idea how many hurdles you have to cross.” As told to Ian Harrison
A bold new version of Video Killed The Radio Star by Bruce Woolley & Polly Scattergood with The Radio Science Orchestra is out now. Says Polly, “It was quite a poignant song to sing, and we played with so many different textures and layers. Bruce’s Theremin playing is quite wonderful.”
“BEFORE THAT, WE BOTH JOINED YES.”