Tag: Heaven 17 (Page 11 of 14)

BEF Music Of Quality & Distinction Vol3 – Dark

21 May 2013 /

The third volume in BRITISH ELECTRIC FOUNDATION’s ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction’ series has been long awaited.

Subtitled ‘Dark’, it was first announced back in 2007 and the majority of it was premiered at a special BEF weekend showcase at The Roundhouse in 2011. ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Vol1’ was issued in 1982 to great fanfare, a sophisticated K-Tel album recorded under the musical directorship of Martyn Ware, then recently departed from THE HUMAN LEAGUE and soon to find fame as part of HEAVEN 17.

Featuring vocalists such as Tina Turner, Sandie Shaw, Paul Jones and Billy Mackenzie, it was a critical if not a commercial success but effectively revived the career of the Soul Siren born Anna Mae Bullock as well as kickstarting Ware’s impressive production portfolio which later encompassed ASSOCIATES and ERASURE.

1991 saw the release of ‘Music of Quality & Distinction Vol2’ which had much more of a mainstream soul vibe; Tina Turner and Billy Mackenzie returned while other notable vocalists included Chaka Khan, Billy Preston, Green Gartside and Terence Trent D’Arby whose massive selling debut ‘Introducing The Hardline…’ was produced by Ware.

The concept of ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Volume 3 – Dark’ though is dark interpretations of perceivably upbeat songs. The chilling, stark electronics and eerie soundtrack arrangements on several tracks have led to Ware producing some of his most distinctly industrialised work since his days with THE HUMAN LEAGUE. The tremendous opener ‘Every Time I See You I Go Wild’ is a case in point.

Using just a Roland System 100, instrumentally it could have come from ‘The Dignity Of Labour’ or ‘Reproduction’while Kim Wilde’s spirited vocal adds a human twist to what sounds like THE HUMAN LEAGUE meets DEPECHE MODE. There’s even a tongue-in-cheek reference to ‘Don’t You Want Me’ thrown into the metallic mix for good measure!

Another great fusion of soul mechanics is ‘Don’t Wanna Know’, a John Martyn cover voiced by former COMMUNARDS co-vocalist Sarah Jane Morris. Still sounding like a lower register Jimmy Sommerville, Morris’ bluesy tones contrast well with the synthesized backing. In a variation to the theme, Green Gartside adds his distinctive raspy touch on The Delfonics’ ‘Didn’t I Blow Your Mind This Time’ which absorbs the senses with its silky sonics and complimentary guitar textures.

Andy Bell provides one of the album’s standouts with his rendition of Kate Bush’s ‘Breathing’. A song that was never that upbeat in the first place, its narrative on the nuclear holocaust is given an even more disturbing counterpoint when Bell audibly recites scientific data on the effects of an attack.

While Bell’s distinctive timbre remains intact, on the orchestrated rock of ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’, Boy George takes on a turn of deadpan and aggression that makes him almost unrecognisable! One of the stars of the BEF showcase at The Roundhouse, his onstage tale about going with Martyn Ware to see Gary Glitter in concert and getting the convicted felon’s autograph was priceless; “I don’t think it’s worth much money now” he quipped! That alone deserves a second track and appropriately enough, it is a near faithful ‘Make Up’ from Lou Reed’s ‘Transformer’. “We’re coming out…out of our closets” indeed!

Another thematic pairing comes with the return of the barefoot Queen of Pop, Sandie Shaw. After tackling ‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’ on ‘Vol1’, she gives it some Northern Soul welly on ‘Just Walk In My Shoes’, a tune written by one-time Motown signings The Lewis Sisters.

Meanwhile the Bacharach and David cover duties on ‘Dark’ go to the kooky Polly Scattergood who delivers a lovely ‘Felt Mountain’ era Goldfrapp styled performance of ‘The Look of Love’. Trivia fact: ‘The Look Of Love’ (which featured in the original film version of ‘Casino Royale’) was beaten to the 1968 Oscar for Best Original Song by ‘Talk To The Animals’ from ‘Doctor Dolittle’!

‘Dark’ is a large collection of work, 16 songs in all and they appear to fall into three categories. As well as dark electronics, there are more contemporary dance assisted numbers and filmic ballads. Of the dancier numbers; melodramatic Sheffield newcomer David J Roch doing Bill Withers’ ‘Same Love’ is one of the big surprises with an emotive neo-acappella intro segueing into a meaty pulsing bassline, spacey whistles and haunting invader games.

HEAVEN 17 backing vocalist Billie Godfrey features on a similar but extended treatment of Bronski Beat’s ‘Smalltown Boy’ while Maxim aka Max Pokrovsky of the Moscow-based rock band Nogu Svelo! goes all campy Europop on an enjoyably over-the-top reading of ABBA’s ‘The Day Before You Came’; a virtual unknown before ‘Dark’… not anymore! The clarinet solo just sums up how gloriously loopy this rendition is!

The late Billy Mackenzie left this earth in 1997 and after his presence on the first two volumes, ‘Dark’ would not be complete without his legacy being represented. This comes in the shape of a sparse, slowed down waltz rendition of ‘Party Fears Two’ by Glenn Gregory which first appeared on HEAVEN 17’s 08 versions compilation ‘Naked As Advertised’. An unexpected inclusion, this is an important centrepiece that sits well with the other songs in the compendium.

And Gregory almost steals the show with Frank Sinatra’s ‘It Was a Very Good Year’. Held together by a sampled drum loop and dressed with Ware’s bubbling synths, Gregory makes a perfect crooner in the tradition of Scott Walker, with echoes of his ‘Always Coming Back To You’ in the delivery. The 60 year old song itself takes on a magnificent dimension that will please any early HEAVEN 17 fan.

However, ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Picture This’ performed respectively by Shingai Shinowa from The Noisettes and Kate Jackson from The Long Blondes are, while sweetly performed, possibly the two least essential items to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s ears on this album. But, such are the strengths of Ware’s curation and production that they are highly likely to be appeal to others. And this is one of the important selling points of ‘Dark’… there really is something for everyone.

Ending with new HEAVEN 17 backing vocalist Kelly Barnes on Teena Marie’s ‘Co-pilot To Pilot’, this is maybe the most incongruous item on the set with the backing track having been originally recorded for ‘Music of Quality & Distinction Vol2’. Its Trans-Atlantic soul vintage is quite apparent, especially when belted out in that classic manner by the Macclesfield youngster.

Overall, ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Volume 3 – Dark’ is a worthy adventure and Martyn Ware can pat himself on the back for realising his most challenging project to date. Whereas the first two volumes had record label support, ‘Dark’ has been self-funded, hence the time span of the work; Ware’s dedication, musical ear and co-ordinating abilities deserve recognition and reward.

‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Volume 3 – Dark’ is released by Wall Of Sound on 27th May 2013 as a single CD, deluxe 2CD with bonus instrumental disc and download

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Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Richard Price and Chi Ming Lai
21st May 2013

MARTYN WARE Gets Dark…

10 May 2013 /

Back in late 1980 with creative and personal tensions running high in the original HUMAN LEAGUE, manager Bob Last engineered a split between its founder members.

Phil Oakey and Adrian Wright kept the name and later had commercial success with ‘Dare’.

Meanwhile as part of the severance terms, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh were given a 1% royalty on ‘Dare’.

This provided the opportunity to form a production company along the lines of THE CHIC ORGANISATION to best exploit their talents with a variety of projects. Virgin Records signed them as BRITISH ELECTRIC FOUNDATION with an option to deliver SIX albums a year!! In 1981, the albums scheduled were BEF ‘Music For Stowaways’, HEAVEN 17 ‘Penthouse & Pavement’, HOT GOSSIP ‘Geisha Boys & Temple Girls’, ‘The Golden Hour Of The Future’ and BEF ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Vol1’.

Of those, only the first three came out that year. ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Vol1’ wasn’t released until 1982 as it proved to be a mammoth task to organise all the logistics for the various guest vocalists while ‘The Golden Hour Of The Future’ album (which consisted of early demos of THE HUMAN LEAGUE ) fell into a dispute with Phil Oakey and wasn’t released until 2002. Eventually HEAVEN 17 took over as the main focus for BEF.

‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Vol1’, a hi-tech covers album featuring guest vocalists and directed by Martyn Ware was a critical, if not a commercial success. From it, ‘Ball Of Confusion’ is now acknowledged as Tina Turner’s modern day recorded comeback and led to Ware producing her big hit ‘Let’s Stay Together’ in 1983. Other vocalists included Sandie Shaw, Paul Jones and Bernie Nolan.

Meanwhile, on ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ sung by Paula Yates, backing vocals were provided by THE NANCY BOYS who were actually HEAVEN 17 plus Bob Geldof and Midge Ure… the latter’s tones can be heard distinctly on the “Strike-Strike!” part!

The album was recorded in John Foxx’s Garden Studios and Foxx played acoustic guitar on Billy Mackenzie’s unique take of ‘It’s Over’. Thus ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Vol1’ remains the only album project to feature ULTRAVOX’s first two vocalists, albeit it rather obliquely!

1991 saw the release of ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Vol2’ which had much more of a mainstream soul vibe; Tina Turner and Billy Mackenzie returned while other notable vocalists included Chaka Khan, Billy Preston, Green Gartside and Terence Trent D’Arby whose massive selling 1987 debut ‘Introducing The Hardline…’ was produced by Ware. Other production work followed for Ware including ERASURE who played host to HEAVEN 17’s comeback when they supported the duo in 1997.

The concept of the new BEF album ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Volume 3 – Dark’ is dark interpretations of perceivably upbeat songs using chilling, stark electronics and eerie soundtrack arrangements. This third volume has been long awaited. First announced back in 2007, parts of it were premiered at a special weekend showcase at The Roundhouse in 2011. Recording has now been completed and the compendium features among others, Boy George, Sandie Shaw, Kim Wilde, Green Gartside, Andy Bell, Sarah Jane Morris, Polly Scattergood and of course, Glenn Gregory.

As well as the album’s release, a pair of BEF live shows have been announced. The BEF Band will comprise Martyn Ware, Berenice Scott, Billie Godfrey, Kelly Barnes and Asa Bennett while the special guest vocalists announced include Andy Bell, Sandie Shaw, Kim Wilde, Glenn Gregory, Green Gartside, Shingai Shoniwa, Kate Jackson (London only), Sarah Jane Morris (London only) and David J Roch (Sheffield only). Martyn Ware kindly spoke about his new sixteen track opus and the upcoming live shows…

How was the BEF weekend for you looking back? And you’re doing it again?

I didn’t want it to be just a one-off but it’s too expensive to tour so I managed to persuade the promoters and Mark Jones from Wall Of Sound to do two dates. It’s less of a risk for them and it’s less expense for us. This time, we’ve put a bit more structure and thought into it.

There’s less artists involved so there will be more kind of depth to it, if you know what I mean? It’s going to be a good two hours long this show!

What was your highlight of the Roundhouse BEF gig?

That’s a tough one. It’s was great having Boy George on the bill, I just love him. Sandie Shaw is a legend, Billie Godfrey was just fantastic, Glenn’s always great… where do you stop?

Was there a moment where your heart missed a beat but you pulled through? Like with vocal cues etc?

Well, yeah, for Midge Ure particularly… he’d not really had a chance to rehearse. Some of them were quite hard… but we can deal with a certain amount of flexibility! I know all the songs anyway so I could jump in! I was relying on them rehearsing at home because we didn’t have time or the money to have the full scale rehearsal with everybody there, it was just too ridiculously expensive to put everyone up overnight.

It was great to get the 3CD BEF ‘1981-2011’ boxed set out to commemorate the occasion, but can I ask what happened with regards that strange three minute edit of ‘Decline Of The West’ as it would appear many fans were disappointed about that?

It was an error and it was too late to do anything about it… it was to do with the fact that I attended the selection of all the versions and the wrong version got annotated… my fault! I put my hands up!

As an event, you did really well to only have one singer not show up…

Yeah, considering they were all doing it for free, it was bloody amazing frankly! The only reason Elly Jackson from LA ROUX didn’t turn up was she had a voice problem at the time; she did apologise profusely. But she’s in the middle of doing her new album so won’t be at these shows. Unfortunately, George can’t do it for the same reason. But there are a couple of surprise guests that we have in mind….

The one that stood out for me at the BEF gig was ‘Every Time I See You I Go Wild’ sung by Kim Wilde…

Yeah, it’s an amazing thing! They’ve just been doing a video for it and I am looking forward to this… Kim in a shiny back catsuit! It’s not fair, they won’t show me any photos! They’re keeping it as a surprise! But I’ve heard reports from people who were there…

You mentioned at the show that it’s just Roland System 100. It’s like early HUMAN LEAGUE, what inspired the arrangement?

That was actually not my arrangement… it’s a friend of mine Brian Duffy from The Modified Toy Orchestra. Around the time I started ‘Dark’, he’d sent me an email saying he’d bought a System 100. So I said “maybe you’d like to do an arrangement for a particular song?” We decided on ‘Every Time I See You I Go Wild’ before we knew Kim was going to be doing it. I thought he’d do something quite basic but he sent me the song back with about 80 tracks on monophonic System 100, pretty much all played by hand apart from the rhythm! I was just blown away of course, it’s beautiful. I’ve obviously enhanced it here and there but it’s his arrangement. Kim’s vocal matches it perfectly.

Photo by Chi Ming Lai

Did you dig out much vintage gear for the ‘Dark’ sessions? How do you find using the virtual software versions of the classic synths?

I didn’t have the option to use virtual synths on ‘Vol1’ obviously, but a lot of it is about time and economics. This album has been a labour of love, nobody has paid me any money to do it, it’s cost me money to do it. Everyone who has participated, apart from the backing vocalists who were paid, has contributed their time.

The first BEF album had a budget so consequently, I had time to experiment, mess around with all the synthesizers, hire stuff. With ‘Dark’, it was a matter of doing it as quickly as we could with as little cost and effort as possible. So you’ve got to be pragmatic. To get the thing done, we had to use a lot of virtual synths, not that I have a problem with that… the Arturia ones are very good. I used a lot of Jupiter 8 and Moog Modular virtual stuff, they’re the two workhorses really for what I did. When you think about it, how much of ‘Vol1’ was electronic? There wasn’t a huge amount, a lot of it was real instruments so in a way, it’s more electronic now than it was in the first place.

Have you tweaked any of the arrangements or sounds of the songs as a result of the Roundhouse gig?

No, not really. I think they all worked pretty well. Having done a lot of live work now as opposed to back then, we have a lot more experience of what works anyway and that gets fed into the lens through which arrangements are created.

Photo by Richard Price

Have you any particular favourites?

I like ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ very much and that arrangement was with the help of another friend Marvin Ayres who’s a composer in his own right; he’s like a one-man orchestra so there’s a lot of real strings on that. I’m also very fond of ‘Picture This’ which again Marvin helped me with and I’m very proud of ‘Smalltown Boy’ as a piece of work, I think it’s a thing of beauty. In different ways, I’m very pleased with it all… I’m not just saying that. It’s an album even if I had not been associated with, I’d go out and buy… and there aren’t many albums I’d buy nowadays *laughs*

There appears to be quite a few covers of ‘Smalltown Boy’ doing the rounds with acts like LITTLE BOOTS and DIVINE KNIGHTS having a go. What’s your view on what sometimes appears to be cyclical interest in particular songs?

It’s weird isn’t it? It’s really interesting. In this particular instance, a lot of it is to do with the re-examination of good material from that period. Whereas when music first started to reference the 80s, a lot of the general public were regarding it as a kind of novelty, and not really discerning between the good and the bad stuff.

Now that people have dug a bit deeper, they’re starting top appreciate the early 80s were probably the last golden age of interesting popular music I think, not just cos we were involved but generally, there was an amazing proliferation of talent and new ideas. So it’s just that people are looking back at that period now and cherry picking… there’s a lot more compilations that have credible stuff from that period now as well. People are going “YEAH! I’ve forgotten about that one and it was really good wasn’t it!” plus you’ve got a brand new audience for all this stuff.

So it’s worth cherry picking the best stuff that is probably simple enough to replicate in a different manner. I mean, it’s difficult to cover something like ‘Temptation’ for instance because it’s very much “how do you cover it?”… it’s got massive production values, big orchestra etc so if you do a simple version of that, it’s not going to be as good… probably. Whereas things like ‘Smalltown Boy’ were pretty stripped back in the first place really.

Photo by Richard Price

The two songs which are the highlights for me and have the most unusual singer / arrangement combinations are Sarah Jane Morris on ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ and David J Roch on ‘Same Love’…

That’s interesting, you’re the first person to have said those two. I had to fight long and hard to even get ‘Don’t Wanna Know’ as part of the main album. At first, Mark Jones wasn’t as keen on it as I was and maybe wanted it as a bonus track. And I’m going “no, hold on a second…this is a fantastic vocal”; she does it live with just a guitar so she was very familiar with the song and I love that song, it’s beautiful. And then I thought “how can we put this into dark electronics?” It’s almost like a darker version of YAZOO or even like PRINCE to a certain extent, there’s kind of a slow, elegant funkiness about it which I like. She’s got quite a deep mezzo soprano, she’s an amazing person.

David J Roch, he’s got a great voice that lad… to be honest, I sprung the arrangement on him. Again, it was his suggestion to do ‘Same Love’ as he does it live with just a guitar. I thought it was interesting to do a song from a soul artist like Bill Withers, but in a different framework. I started off with doing this ambient filmic thing which is what the first half of the song and then I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to do the second half as a Giorgio Moroder medium tempo disco number… and it worked! God bless him, he got right into it in the end which is how I got him to do all the backing vocals and everything. But he’d never done or considered doing a disco number in his life. He’s a really talented guy.

Last time we spoke, I joked to you about getting Scott Walker to do this album…

He was too hard to get, I can’t imagine him jumping at it!

But Glenn Gregory’s performance hints at him on ‘It Was a Very Good Year’?

Yeah, there is a bit of that… I gave Glenn the backing track and he did it alone in his own studio so I wasn’t in the room with him. We usually are but it’s just how it worked out. He did it like a pilot vocal and I loved it so much that I told him “we don’t need to re-do this”. Sometimes, the first things that you think of are the best… I thought “should I put so BVs around it? No! Should I change the arrangement? Not really!”. I just added a FUGEES breakbeat pattern on the end which I think works. Yeah, I’m very pleased with it, it came out better than I expected… ‘It Was a Very Good Year’ itself is brilliant, but you could easily make a terrible version of it. It wouldn’t be Glenn’s fault, it would be my fault. I think we cracked it and I’m looking forward to hearing him do it live.

The late inclusion of ‘Party Fears Two’… that came from the HEAVEN 17 ‘Naked As Advertised’ 2008 reworkings compilation?

You’re familiar with it and a lot of our fans are too but the broader public aren’t, so I thought it deserved a wider outing. I thought it would fit with the mood of the album as well.

Well, the other thing is that it’s a nice way of having Billy Mackenzie on the album as he was on the first two BEF albums, but of course he’s no longer with us…

That’s exactly another thing… it was almost like a tacit tribute to Billy and it was obviously done as a tribute to Billy anyway; it thematic fits on every level really.

And breaking news… Andy Bell wants to do ‘Party Fears Two’ live and I think his voice will match that beautifully for this show.

You can let people know that… I’ll tell Glenn, don’t worry! *laughs*

The funny thing about your version of ‘Party Fears Two’, when I first heard it… I didn’t like it! It took me about four years to like it!

You’re joking?

I don’t know if it’s because it’s such an iconic song but I absolutely love it now…

Our version is like a totally different song isn’t it? What it does do is reveal the beauty of the original melody and lyric, that’s really the premise for the whole album.

How did you find Max Pokrovsky for ‘The Day Before You Came’?

Max is bonkers! He is a famous pop/post-punk star in the Russian Federation. He’s in the rock band NOGU SVELO! but his real passion is Western European electronic pop music! So he’s an enormous fan of ERASURE and he approached me a couple of years ago to produce some material for him because his dream is to move to London and to become famous in the electropop field!

But the problem is of course, a) he’s always going to sound unusual shall we say, because although his English is getting better, he sounds very Russian indeed and b) we’re not at the peak of success and sales for electronic popular music at the moment, certainly not stuff sung by mad Russian dudes! *laughs*

Not withstanding that, he’s a really good writer and arranger so I did couple of tracks with him, he’s worked with a couple of other British producers and sooner or later, his album’s going to come out. And I thought to give him a bit of a leg up to expose him to the general public, it would be nice to put him on this album. I asked him which track he liked to do and he said the ABBA track.

I think it’s a nice piece of work. Again, he did most of the arrangement of ‘The Day Before You Came’… this isn’t true for all the tracks but it just happens to be the ones you’ve mentioned. I wanted to make this like a collective experiment and a way of distributing the work so I didn’t spend a year working on something that I was not going to get the money back for.

There’s something for everyone on this album isn’t there?

What I like is the eclecticism of the album. I have always preferred albums that have a wide range of sonic styles because I believe people are bright enough to connect the dots. I don’t believe in one single style throughout an album, I think it’s a bit boring frankly.

It’s not just a patchwork quilt of disparate ideas, there is a theme behind it all and the unifying thing is my assessment of what is good about the arrangements. For instance, I’ve not used every element of people’s contributions so I’m kind of like the sub-editor, even when other people have done the basic stuff.

Photo by Richard Price

Another one I like is ‘The Look Of Love’ by Polly Scattergood…

Yeah, Polly was probably second person after Billie Godfrey to agree to do the album. I contacted Daniel Miller at Mute Records to see if any of his artists would be interested in this artistic concept and he said “I think Polly would be perfect for this”… and indeed she was! I’m a little bit upset that she’s not going to be doing the live shows because her management have decided that she’s got a new album coming out and they don’t want any distractions… I think that’s ridiculous personally but there you go, that’s life! How’s this going to harm her in any shape or form? I failed to understand! But that’s what they think, and that’s fine!

I’m just grateful she’s done the album. And it’s a lovely version of ‘The Look Of Love’. It’s funny, I sent the album to a friend of mine, Adrian Durham who’s a big H17/BEF fan and works for Talksport. He played it to his girlfriend and got into an argument with her about this track as they didn’t have a list of the artists. She was convinced it was BJORK and actually, I can hear that…

…I thought Polly sounded a bit like Alison Goldfrapp as well!

We got very close to getting Alison on the album but for some reason she decided not to do it. It’s sad because I’m a big fan of GOLDFRAPP. But we’ve got a great line-up of people, I can’t complain at all. I am totally in their debt because none of them had to do it. I’ve got a track record for doing things right so they know I wouldn’t let anything go out there that was rubbish. And whatever you think of them because not everything is going to be to everyone’s tastes, I’ve put a lot of effort into making them sound good. They are very musical and hopefully, creative and interesting. That’s why I managed to get so many people to do it because there’s no money involved.

Were there any vocalists that you can tell me about that you might have wanted for ‘Dark’ but couldn’t get for various reasons like Siouxsie Sioux, Claudia Brücken, Elly Jackson or Midge Ure?

I asked Siouxsie and she said no… we got somewhere down the line but it just never happened.

I asked Midge but I can’t be spending my life chasing people and it was just one of those things where he didn’t really come back to me and didn’t sound terribly keen. But when he realised that the deadline had passed, he was like… I don’t think he intended not to do it. He was doing other things. With Claudia, it just never occurred to me… sometimes, you can’t see the wood from the trees.

And somebody else I thought of today who I worked with is the past is Marc Almond! That would have been great as I love his voice but I dunno, it’s just weird isn’t it?

Of course, Claudia’s just done her own covers album, so has ELO’s Jeff Lynne. The art of reinterpretation does seem to be something artists do now…

It keeps the pot stirring doesn’t it? To be honest, we live in a world where people seem to be more interested in cover versions than doing original material. I hate to say it but it’s true though!

Are there any songs that didn’t make it onto ‘Dark’ that you’re hanging onto as bonuses or just didn’t work?

Yes, there are a few but not that I’ve recorded vocals for. There’s ‘The Night’ originally by Frankie Valli…

Yes, SOFT CELL released that in 2002 so maybe you can get Marc Almond to do it? *laughs*

Yeah! That’ll be me ripping them off! *laughs*

I like this version of ‘Good Times’ that I did, it’s quite odd and I asked Martin Fry to sing on but he didn’t like it so I went off it a bit! I started doing a version of ‘Nipple To The Bottle’ but that never got finished. I started versions of ‘Night & Day’ and ‘Some Velvet Morning’ too. There are lots of others including ‘Just One Look’ which was for Elly Jacskon and never happened.

What are your fondest memories about recording ‘Dark’?

We had to go into Strongroom Studios to record Shingai Shoniwa, Boy George and Sandie Shaw so that was quite a session, with them all turning up one after another in one day.

We did all the backing vocals on the same day as well so that was very special. But the rest of it was just me, a computer and lots of phone calls!

What are your hopes and fears for the album?

My fears are no-one will hear it but my hopes are that some of the tracks will get used for synchronisations because I think tracks like ‘The Look Of Love’ and ‘Picture This’, I can see them on some teen angst movie. The album is full of characters so it might just fit the bill for certain types of films. So we’re trying to get somebody to service this to the appropriate people in Hollywood, HBO and places like that. And I hope the album does spectacularly well but I’m not expecting that because simply, there’s not the budget to promote it.

What’s the business model for someone like yourself now?

It’s difficult, there isn’t a model that makes money. But I can’t let that stop me from being creative so I have to take a view on it and pay for my exceptionally expensive lifestyle by doing other things.

How has the lavish ‘House Of Illustrious’ boxed set you’ve done with Vince Clarke been received?

It’s done well, I don’t think it’s sold out yet but it’s not far off so that’s pretty good. I’m very proud of it. It’s a collectable so all sorts of people are buying it. If you do them in a limited enough format, they become a collector’s item that will appreciate in value over the years.

A lot of care has been taken into packaging it as an artistic artefact…

People appreciate this stuff… also, just going back to ‘Dark’, the packaging is just spectacular, absolutely beautiful. It’s one of the best things Malcolm Garrett has done for us ever. It looks great!

As well as touring with HEAVEN 17, you’ve been doing these one-off appearances like at Only After Dark and the John Shuttleworth cancer charity gig. Do you use a flexible slimmed down line-up for these?

Sometimes we have to because we simply can’t afford to have the big band and it’s not appropriate for a lot of things. If you look at ERASURE for instance, it’s four people on stage and the rest is backing track… that to be honest looks like the future of what we’re going to have to do, now we’re out of the reproducing the album sound, as it were. The festival shows tend to be more people on stage just to make it look right but in terms of smaller club shows, yeah it will be a slimmed down version. Whatever happens, it will be fine because we do things like ‘Rewind’ which we’re doing this year with a slimmed down set-up because for a lot of those shows, they don’t have time to do the changeover. And a lot of those things, they have a house band… we would still prefer not to have that because it makes it sound like Karaoke as far as we’re concerned. So we end up using backing tracks.

Is there likely to be new HEAVEN 17 material?

We are intending to do that; we’ve had an idea that we want to approach. It’s still in the birthing stage but I think we want to make it very electronic and stripped down, more so than even the BEF album… we always start off with this intention but it always ends up epic!! But I think we want to do something more in the vein of early HUMAN LEAGUE arrangements like ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin Feelin’ rather than ‘Temptation’. And focussing on the way we’ve been performing, as the two of us are almost the act now… I’ve been getting braver and braver and coming a little bit more to the front, the banter thing and all that! So potentially, it could be more evenly balanced vocally than it has been in the past.

How do HEAVEN 17 manage to straddle the nostalgia circuit yet remain credible at the same time when other bands get labelled as retro acts?

We’re quite open about it I think… I’ve had this discussion with agencies who want to employ us and when we were with William Morris who are a big agency and have massive electronic acts.

At first they were saying “you can’t do this 80s thing, it’ll kill your credibility” and I said “Look, if you do it with the right intention, there’s nothing wrong so long as you’re selective”… you can’t accept everything that comes along.

Although we’ve done it in the past, we’re not going to do ‘Here & Now’ now we’ve established ourselves from doing the ‘Penthouse & Pavement’ shows at the credible end of that thing… everything is informed by that attitude. I don’t see a problem with ‘Rewind’ for instance but you’d have to pay us a lot of money to do things like ‘Here & Now’ because they seem to have gone onto the cheesier end of the market, although we wouldn’t rule it out because we need to pay the bills, it’s as simple as that.

But even within something like that, the tracks that we do, they’re credible. We still do ‘Fascist Groove Thang’ even in short sets. Although we don’t do it anymore, I remember doing a Butlins show because the money was really good and we started it with ‘Fascist Groove Thang’… you just look at these families and they’d be going “WHAT?” *laughs*

There are some artists from that period who we’ve been on the same bill as us who will literally just do a couple of their hits and then they’ll do other people’s songs as part of their main set and it’s only 20 minutes long. It’s like “REALLY?”; these are artists who have put out several albums at least back in their heyday yet they don’t have the bravery to do that stuff! That subtle difference is the distinction between what we do where we have four or five albums of credible material to pick from and shall we say, pop acts who have less longevity and depth from that period.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Martyn Ware

Special thanks to Rosie Johnstone at Impressive PR

‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Volume 3 – Dark’ is released by Wall Of Sound on 27th May 2013 as a single CD, deluxe 2CD with bonus instrumental disc and download

To hear samples from the album and details on how to pre-order, please visit: www.britishelectricfoundation.com

www.facebook.com/BritishElectricFoundation/

www.heaven17.com/bef/

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
10th May 2013

BERENICE SCOTT Interview

31 January 2013 /

Photo by Richard Price

Those who have been to HEAVEN 17’s concert performances over the last 18 months will have noticed a glamorous addition to the band on keyboards.

The lady in question is Berenice Scott, a musician and songwriter with an exotic musical upbringing. The HEAVEN 17 live line-up was expanded to accommodate the wider template of instrumental colours required to perform ‘The Luxury Gap’ as part of a UK tour and as a precursor to the BEF concert extravaganza at The Roundhouse in October 2011.

With the latter featuring guest vocalists as diverse as Sandie Shaw, Midge Ure, Green Gartside, Kim Wilde, Polly Scattergood, Shingai Shoniwa and Boy George, other than musical director Martyn Ware, Miss Scott was the only member of the house band to have been on stage for the entire 23 song set.

Taking in standards like ‘God Only Knows’, ‘It’s Over’, ‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’ and ‘The Look Of Love’, as well as cult favourites such as ‘Secret Life Of Arabia’ and ‘Make Up’ plus the full HEAVEN 17 set the night before, she showed her prowess in coping with the wide range of keyboard styles required.

Berenice released her first solo album ‘Ten Takes’ in 2007 and has worked on a variety of musical projects including with LEVEL 42’s Phil Gould and 42 associate Wally Badarou while more recently, she undertook a number of solo gigs in support of NOUVELLE VAGUE vocalist Marina Celeste. Following an EP entitled ‘The Outwood Sessions’ last year, she has re-recorded its key track ‘Walls Cave In’ for an upcoming single release. Having just completed the German leg of ‘The Luxury Gap’ tour with HEAVEN 17, Berenice Scott spoke about working with Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware, as well as shedding light on her own musical ambitions…

How did you come to be working with HEAVEN 17?

I was playing the Esbjerg festival in Denmark with JOHNNY HATES JAZZ and HEAVEN 17 were on the bill too. A few months later I was at a party and bumped into Joel Farland – H17’s drummer at the time – and soon after he arranged a meeting for Martyn, Glenn and us as he knew they were looking for a keys player for the BEF weekend. We had a nice chat over coffee in Primrose Hill and it lead from there!

Can you remember your first live performance with Martyn and Glenn?

The first show I played was Tramlines festival in Sheffield. It was a big home crowd and the vibe was mental. Glenn and Martyn have great energy on stage and I remember that once the show started the stage floor was bouncing around all over the place – had to keep a firm eye on the laptop! – was a lot of fun.

As the new girl in the band, they certainly threw you in at the deep end with the BEF Weekender. How was it learning so many songs, especially for the BEF show which of course was a one-off?

Well, we knew in advance there’d be quite a few songs but it wasn’t till I sat down with the setlist to properly get stuck in that my eyes widened a bit haha! I think it was something like 42 songs over the two nights… I enjoyed working with such a wide variety of artists as all the tracks required different approaches in playing and I love that. Slightly stressful at times but worth it!

Which one in particular was the most challenging to perform?

Sandie Shaw’s number ‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’ was one of my favourites to play as it’s very piano driven. I had to be really locked in with the click and Sandie though as the intro is very naked. Transcribing the solo for ‘Lady Ice & Mr Hex’ was a nice little challenge! Nick Plytas (original keyboard player on the album and ‘Lady Ice…’) certainly gave me something to get my teeth into.

Apart from Martyn, you were the only other musician who was onstage for the entirety of the BEF set? What memories stand out for you about the evening and were there any more nervy moments which you managed to get through ok?

It was cool to see everyone come on and off through the whole show, definitely could have done with taking my heels off a few times though haha! The second to last tune (if I remember rightly) was with Boy George – ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ – and was a blast.

Joel and I had a few hairy moments as some of the track disappeared but it was all good as we knew the parts to cover it. I can picture Boy George now in his pink hat commanding the stage with his fabulous stage presence. The final number was a rendition of ‘Temptation’ of course, everyone came on stage and I’ll never forget that.

You’ve been touring ‘The Luxury Gap’ with HEAVEN 17, how do you think the album stands up nearly 30 years on and which tracks have been your favourites?

It’s full of hits isn’t it?! Easy to see how it stands up when playing it live too, people are so into the tunes and we’ve seen a whole range of ages at the gigs. The test of time is the biggest one don’t you think? And tracks like ‘Crushed By The Wheels of Industry’ and ‘We Live So Fast’ still have such freshness to them. ‘Who’ll Stop The Rain’ is one of my favourites to play live, I think you can hear Martyn and Glenn’s funk influences in them such as Funkadelic and Parliament. ‘The Best Kept Secret’ is a beautiful orchestral landscape, there is such variety within this album, and it’s always nice when an album keeps you on your toes. The recent German tour was fab, very cold but a lot of fun. Didn’t want it to end 🙁

How do you find the more obviously unique electronic material like from the ‘Penthouse & Pavement’ era and the early HUMAN LEAGUE?

‘Being Boiled’ is great to play as well as the more recent addition to the set ‘Crow & A Baby’. The synths are so fat on these tracks and exciting to play, you can’t help but bop away to them. Martyn has a very particular idea of how he wants the synths to sound and it’s been great working with him to get the synths and pads sounding how he wants them to sound.

What’s the live band dynamic like? Is there much debate between you all as to what gets played and what remains sequenced for example? How involved were you in working out the final live arrangements?

I’ll have the set up and running in Logic at rehearsals and Julian Crampton (bass), Al Anderson (drums), Asa Bennett (guitar) and me will run the set through and make sure it’s all sitting right sonically. Martyn and Glenn have the final say, of course! As I mentioned before, they’re very hands on with synth sounds and arrangements and they know how they want things to sound, which is great as it gives the band proper direction.

You use a Roland Fantom G6 and Clavia Nord Stage, how did ese become your keyboards of choice and what are they like to use?

I had a Mark 1 Stage 76 Rhodes and soon after got my Nord Stage 76 as it has – in my opinion – the best piano sound as well as all the other vintage keys sounds. Going out on the road I would take my Nord and M-Audio controller with my laptop running Logic’s Mainstage. I swapped the laptop for my Roland Fantom after being on tour supporting P!NK and checking out her keys player Jason Chapman’s rig, which at the time comprised of Fantoms. They looked so user friendly and I needed a keyboard that would allow me to easily layer sounds when constructing parts, especially for bands like HEAVEN 17.

At home, growing up, I was surrounded by classic synths and keys such as the Fairlight, Minimoog as well as a Bluthner Grand Piano and I do miss having a real piano and analogue synth in my rig but I’ve found a happy medium with my Nord and Fantom. Makes transportation a lot easier too.

Is there a dream instrument you would like to own?

Very happy with what I already have but I suppose a Mark 1 Suitcase Fender Rhodes 88 wouldn’t hurt! I recently tried a Roland GAIA, that’s a cool little board.

Photo by Glenn Gregory

What is your own musical background in terms of training and influences?

I started classical piano and trumpet lessons at 7. I was at a very arts and sports orientated school from 9 years old and I was lucky to have been encouraged musically there. I come from a family rooted in the Pop Muzik industry and I began to gravitate away from writing classical pieces on the piano to structuring pop songs. I wrote my first song at 16 on guitar and wrote on guitar for a few years until eventually switching over to piano as it is such a textually rich instrument. I definitely have a love affair with the piano!

Since then my teaching / college has been old records introduced to me such as THE CRUSADERS, EARTH WIND & FIRE and Herbie Hancock  etc… I have worked heavily with Phil Gould (of LEVEL 42) and sung on two albums for him – ‘Terraforming’ and ‘Watertight’. I always think of that as part of my training; Phil is without doubt one of the classiest drummers in the world and he transfers this rhythm into his songwriting. I learnt so much about phrasing, time signatures and melody through working with him.

There’s two versions of your single ‘Walls Cave In’, the earlier take is quite rocky and you’ve got the voice to match it too while the new version is more of a ballad. Were the two different approaches a result of your eclectic tastes?

Yes definitely… that’s a good way of describing it. I wanted to do a softer version as I feel like the song has two sides. The sentiment is quite painful and tinged with anger but it also has soft undertones which I wanted to put across in the less rocky version.

Who have you been working with on the album and how would you describe it?

It’s been a dream to work with all my favourite musicians this time around! My first album ‘Ten Takes’ was very in-the-box and a totally different experience as I played and programmed everything myself which is what I wanted to do at the time.

This time I’ve collaborated with musicians whom I’ve either known for a long time such as Alex Gould – drums (Jazz multi-instrumentalist and son of LEVEL 42 drummer Phil Gould) Andy Tolman – bass (Ben E King, Patrice Rushen), Ed Sethardwright – guitar/songwriting (co-writer of previous EP ‘The Outwood Sessions’) and musicians I’ve met through my session work over the past few years. These include Alex Reeves – drums (Johnny Hates Jazz, Dizzee Rascal), Derrick McIntyre – bass (Jamiroquai, Patricia Kass), Lily Gonzalez – percussion (ABC, Belinda Carlisle), and Ben Lyonsmyth – bass/songwriting (Olly Murs, Amy McDonald).

How would you like your music career to develop from here? Your hopes and fears for the future?

More of the same and continuing to play live with awesome artists would be nice. As long as I’m playing and writing I’m happy.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Berenice Scott

https://berenicescott.com/

https://twitter.com/berenicescott

https://www.facebook.com/berenicescott

https://www.instagram.com/berenicescott/

http://www.heaven17.com/

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
31st January 2013

HEAVEN 17 The Luxury Gap Live

5 November 2012 /

HEAVEN 17’s strength as performers is that they are great fun.

It was the conclusion of their UK tour for ‘The Luxury Gap’ at Shepherd’s Bush Empire having premiered it during last year’s BEF Weekender at The Roundhouse. The vibrant chemistry between its central vocal axis of Glenn Gregory, Martyn Ware and Billie Godfrey was very apparent and a pleasure to witness.

While the social commentary of HEAVEN 17’s music has always had serious intent and is as relevant now as it was in 1983, the message has always been delivered with a sense of humour and irony. As a result, HEAVEN 17 gigs have never been dour affairs. Of course, ‘The Luxury Gap’ was the album that launched HEAVEN 17 into the mainstream after a period as cult heroes with their debut ‘Penthouse & Pavement’.

They even ended up appearing on the same edition of Top Of The Pops as their old sparring partners THE HUMAN LEAGUE… the tensions between the two acts respective architects Martyn Ware and Phil Oakey have been well documented but in Spring 1983, ‘Temptation’ and ‘(Keep Feeling) Fascination’ were both in the Top 5 and the pop promise of the original Sheffield synth pioneers who formed in 1978 was now gallantly fulfilled.

The singles such as ‘Let Me Go’, ‘Crushed By the Wheels Of Industry’ and ‘Come Live With Me’ are regular staples of the H17 live set but it was the opportunity to hear material such as ‘Who’ll Stop the Rain’ and ‘We Live So Fast’ that made this evening such as joyful experience. The orchestrated ballad ‘The Best Kept Secret’ held the crowd’s attention despite the absence of beats while ‘Lady Ice & Mr Hex’, a weird fusion of jazz piano, polyrhythmics, Linn Drum and acid squelches was this section’s highlight.

Inevitably, ‘Temptation’ was still a scene stealer despite being programmed comparatively early into the proceedings although an extended BROTHERS IN RHYTHM styled reprise as an encore helped close the evening with the appropriate euphoric climax…“dime in the hot slot” and all that!

With notable session musicians such as Ray Russell, John Wilson, Simon Phillips and Nick Plytas playing on the original album, HEAVEN 17 sidemen (and woman) Asa Bennett, Julian Crampton, Al Anderson and Berenice Scott all marvellously replicated these parts and more in this retrospective setting. The band was complimented with the addition of Kelly Barnes on extra backing vocals, who with Billie Godfrey and Berenice Scott, provided a glamourous distraction stage right as Messrs Ware and Gregory did their double act on the left.

To bolster the remainder of the show, there were also various highlights from HEAVEN 17’s career like ‘We’re Going To Live For A Very Long Time’, ‘Penthouse & Pavement’, a danced up ‘Geisha Boys & Temple Girls’, ‘I’m Your Money’ and ‘Fascist Groove Thang’.

There’s very much an understanding between Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory that the earlier electronic material is performed, not for nostalgic reasons but because it is their best. However, in the absence of new material, the occasion also acted as a platform for the “medium of reinterpretation” with charismatic performances of THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s ‘Crow & A Baby’ and ‘Being Boiled’.

Who would have thought that two songs Martyn Ware co-wrote with Phil Oakey and Ian Craig Marsh respectively about teenage pregnancy and silk worms roasted alive in the name of fashion would go down so well on a Saturday night? “From when THE HUMAN LEAGUE were good” remarked Ware cheekily on the conclusion of ‘Crow & A Baby’. “You can’t say that!” retorted Gregory before launching into his now almost inevitable acoustic rendition of ‘Don’t You Want Me’ and amusingly forgetting the words in the process!

There was also a cover of Da League’s cover of ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ where Martyn Ware left his Roland V-Synth GT to join Glenn Gregory as part of a new vocal duo THE RIGHT-ON BROTHERS, and a slowed down waltz tribute to the late Billy MacKenzie with ‘Party Fears Two’, ASSOCIATES’ heartfelt paean to the pain of schizophrenia. They may not have new songs but HEAVEN 17 certainly take risks with their live sets, unlike several of their Synth Britannia contemporaries.

It was a memorable and enjoyable time for everyone concerned. The banter between band members with the audience made for an entertaining show. But what next for the future artistic endeavours of HEAVEN 17? Is a live showcase of the Fairlighted jamboree of third album ‘How Men Are’ next in line? Nowhere near as consistent as either ‘Penthouse & Pavement’ or ‘The Luxury Gap’, it would be a brave move.

And looking ahead, even the most hardened HEAVEN 17 fan is unlikely to be waiting for the concert debut of ‘Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho’!! So instead, here’s another question to end… is Berenice Scott possibly the sexiest lady ever to have got behind a synthesizer?

With thanks to Rosie Johnstone and Sacha Taylor-Cox at Impressive PR

‘The Luxury Gap’ 2CD+DVD box set is available now via Virgin/EMI Records

‘Naked As Advertised’ featuring HEAVEN 17’s versions of ‘Party Fears Two’, ‘Being Boiled’ and ‘Empire State Human’ plus 2008 versions of their best known songs is released by Absolute Zero

HEAVEN 17’s German tour for ‘The Luxury Gap’ includes:

Aschaffenburg Colos-Saal (10th December), Hamburg Fabrik (11th December), Berlin C-Club (12th December), Köln Live Music Hall (13th December),  Leipzig Anker (14th December)

http://www.heaven17.com

https://www.facebook.com/heaven17official

Text by Chi Ming Lai
5th November 2012

HEAVEN 17 Interview

23 September 2012 /

Photo by Gered Mankowitz

HEAVEN 17 will be touring their platinum selling second album ‘The Luxury Gap’ this Autumn.

Featuring their classic hits ‘Come Live With Me’, ‘Let Me Go’, ‘Crushed By The Wheels of Industry’ and ‘Temptation’, the album’s resonant social commentary is wholly fitting in the current economic climate. Back in 1983 when the album was released, Glenn Gregory, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh flew the red flag for the Socialist Republic of Yorkshire with their witty observations of the greed and yuppie culture in the Thatcher era.

Perhaps more obviously pop oriented than its predecessor ‘Penthouse and Pavement’, ‘The Luxury Gap’ had a glossy sheen which combined synthesizer programming and digital drum computers with orchestrations, brass, jazz piano, rhythm guitar and paving slabs.

Glenn Gregory, who had been working as a photographer in London, was recruited into HEAVEN 17 following the split of THE HUMAN LEAGUE Mk1 in 1980. While Phil Oakey found two girls “in a cocktail bar”, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh formed BRITISH ELECTRIC FOUNDATION (BEF), a production company along the lines of THE CHIC ORGANISATION to best utilise their talents.

Among their first projects were the instrumental ‘Music For Stowaways’ cassette and the ambitious covers album ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Vol 1’. Although he was partly involved in both, Gregory became lead singer for what was to be BEF’s pop outfit, influenced by the soul funk fusion of THE JACKSONS as well as the electronic music technology that had now become more affordable and user friendly.

‘Penthouse and Pavement’ was a critical success with steadily increasing sales but with the mainstream appeal of ‘The Luxury Gap’, HEAVEN 17 eventually took priority over BEF.

Photo by Gered Mankowitz

The period between 1981-84 is often considered to be HEAVEN 17’s imperial phase but during this period, they didn’t actually perform live, save a few live vocal / playback appearances in clubs for promotional purposes.

Having successfully toured ‘Penthouse & Pavement’ in 2010 to great acclaim, it is now the turn of ‘The Luxury Gap’.

Glenn Gregory spoke about this classic album and also why HEAVEN 17 keep performing songs from the early phase of THE HUMAN LEAGUE like ‘Being Boiled’ and ‘The Black Hit Of Space’ in their live set…

There’s a 2CD/DVD box set of ‘The Luxury Gap’ about to be released– what can fans expect in terms of rarities?

We’ve dug around and there’s three tracks from ‘Night Of The Proms’ we’ve put on. That’s amazing because it’s a full orchestra and 75 piece choir. There are the extended remixes BUT we did forget to include the original demo of ‘Temptation’!!! *laughs*

That’s a shame because moving from that KRAFTWERK meets SOFT CELL demo to the electro-soul fusion…that’s quite a transformation?

Yes, quite a lot of our early demos were much more electronic and we were writing with similar equipment to THE HUMAN LEAGUE. It’s only afterwards when we went into the studio that we started to experiment and change the way we were conceiving and perceiving the songs.

For instance, it took us a long time to find a girl for ‘Temptation’. Martyn had the idea for the Motown backbeat but it’s still very electronic really… there was this part that built and we decided to try an orchestra. So we were in the studio with this massive orchestra and it was like “oh my god”, it was amazing because it was so different. It was a complete game changer.

Rusty Egan found us Carol Kenyon; we tried a couple of people including Josie James who sang on ‘Penthouse & Pavement’, but she was too soft, it wasn’t ballsy enough. So I phoned him up and explained what we needed and he went: “I GOT JUST THE GIRL FOR YA GLENN, COME DOWN THE WAG CLUB!” so that was it! He introduced us to Carol so big thanks to Rusty on that one *laughs*

What inspired ‘Come Live With Me’?

I was at that time I wrote it, seeing a young girl and I was getting a few jibes like “what time do you pick her up from school?”…it was half past three actually! *laughs*

So there was this “she’s half your age” thing and all that kind of stuff but it started to be about word play. “I was thirty seven – you were seventeen – you were half my age – the youth I’d never seen”… the words were making us laugh! It was all messing around! That’s where it all came from and we were quite surprised we’d written quite a beautiful song by the end of it because we were laughing like mad.

We did this cancer charity gig with John Shuttleworth at the Bloomsbury Theatre and there was a version of one of his comedy songs ‘Dandelion of Burdock’ which I did in the style of ‘Vienna’… it was a showstopper! But we did ‘Come Live With Me’ as well and John  was on with us… as the lyrics went: “I was thirty seven – you were seventeen”, he replied: “Well, I don’t know if I approve of that!” That was fun. *laughs*

Photo by Tracey Welch

You and Martyn have always maintained that ‘Let Me Go’ is your favourite H17 song. It had that TB303 Bassline which was very innovative at the time…

It changed so much from the demo and we wrote it in my flat on a TEAC 4 track. We had a tiny Yamaha keyboard and we came up with that melody which was almost film soundtracky. It was beautiful but as the song steadily got bigger, it went through a whole heap of changes. But we kept the TB303 Bassline.  It needed some balls so we put bass guitar on it but it didn’t work. Then we added these low piano notes like ‘Vienna’ and that didn’t work!

But then Martyn made this “wowww” sound on the Jupiter 8 with the delay, that was great and the start of it with the drums, that was me actually playing real drums. We got these toms in and I did this big Phil Collins fill. I did it twice and they all went “yeah, that’s brilliant” but I went “I wanna do it more! I’m enjoying this!”

When we finished ‘Let Me Go’, we realised we’d lost the original beauty of the demo so we did it again… so basically, ‘The Best Kept Secret’ is ‘Let Me Go’ but redone with an orchestra. So we got two songs out of it. It took a lot out of us but it gave us so much more back. We really do love that track, it’s a great song to sing. It’s very emotional and it’s great for my range, I can really belt it out. It gives a lot back that song.

You’ve talked about seeing ULTRAVOX play The Roundhouse and how vibrant the show was – did you draw inspiration from that when you put together the HEAVEN 17 / BEF weekend and debuted ‘The Luxury Gap’ live there?

Yes, that is absolutely true… Midge invited me and Martyn down. I had never actually been to The Roundhouse before and I went not knowing what to expect from a revamped ULTRAVOX or The Roundhouse and how the sound would be. But I was absolutely blown away by the artistry and sincerity of ULTRAVOX and the audience were amazing. They didn’t milk anything or act like ‘comeback kids’… to me, it was like watching THE KILLERS! I thought “this is an amazing place”, it was like a happening. I felt privileged to be there and that’s what put the idea in my head. And then Peter Price at William Morris Agency suggested doing the weekender with BEF thing which Midge loved the idea of.

That weekend must have been quite tricky to co-ordinate with all those high profile artists making an appearance?

That was just so much work to pull all that together. We got people to say yes and to turn up at odd times for rehearsals.

But we hadn’t really thought about the night itself. So there was all these people singing and we realised we’d need a stage manager!

So Martyn got this mate who worked at the Royal Opera House who does that. She made the backstage bit run really smoothly. At the end of the weekend, I needed four nights off!

Any tense moments for you or did you just let Martyn sweat it out alone?

Yeah, I was just helping it run smoothly and telling everyone they were going to be alright! *laughs*

What are you singing on the new BEF ‘Dark’ album incidentally?

I’m singing ‘It Was A Very Good Year’ which was made famous by Frank  Sinatra. Martyn has scored it, but using just System 100 and synths so it’s really odd and weird. He’s done a really good job of it. It’s slow and lumbering but quite obviously, dark as well *laughs*

So what’s the format for the upcoming tour – you’ll be playing ‘The Luxury Gap’ again – can we expect any surprises… more HUMAN LEAGUE songs?

It’s funny because it’s me that pushes that HUMAN LEAGUE thing and I love that early stuff. I was a massive fan even though I knew them all. I must confess that yes, I have programmed up a few more things already… I’ve been on at Phil Oakey every time I see him saying: “Please Phil; you, Martyn and Ian… go and do the first two albums, just do it once”. But he won’t have it! I would have my ticket and be at the front weeks in advance…

You and Claudia Brücken were in The Independent recently about how you both met and she’s was saying you should do new material…is there a chance of a new HEAVEN 17 album – how are the odds looking today with regards to going back into the studio?

We’ve got to take a different view of it and have a different head on… it’s partly me, and Martyn as well. We could easily write a couple of tracks, sing them and put them out…that’s fine but there’s something in us that thinks “if we’re going to do it, we would want to do it really well” and that might mean using an orchestra or working with other people. It’s going to take more effort. BUT it doesn’t have to be that, we could just do it. For instance, I did the track for John Shuttleworth in about 3-4 days and it’s sounded great, Martyn said it was “awesome”…and I was just messing about really! I’m kind of coming round – Claudia’s winning I think… she’s always going on at me *laughs*

How was performing with Claudia Brücken at The Scala and Bush Hall?

It was great, Claudia and I just keep ending up working together. It’s always an absolute pleasure. She’s a lovely person and we get on well. I take the p*ss out of her because she’s German and she doesn’t understand so it’s great for me. *laughs*

You did ‘When Your Heart Runs Out of Time’ live with her. The original recording you did for ZTT was produced by Midge Ure under the alias Otto Flake Junior, have you any interesting memories of that?

The hilarity of that is, for this German TV documentary Midge and I did, I invited Claudia down to the studio so that we could do ‘When Your Heart Runs Out of Time’. So Midge said: “ok, can you send it to me?”. So I sent it to him and we were talking…he did not remember doing it!! He has no memory of it at all! Claudia was saying “Midge, we were in your studio!”; “Which studio?” Midge replied…Claudia goes: “In Chiswick” ! He had no idea, it was hilarious! *laughs*

Paul Morley got the gig for the ‘Insignificance’ film and had the idea of putting me and Claudia together to do this Country and Western track written by Will Jennings. It’s at the end of the film, it was just a very funny thing to do. The video for it was hilarious; Paul said “The premiere’s tonight in Haymarket, why don’t we get Claudia in a white dress all Marilyn Munroe-esque, you get your suit on and we just film you lip-synching to the song as people are leaving”.

Claudia was going: “Oh Paul, I cannot do that!”… so I gave Claudia some vodka! And gave her some more! So people would literally have just come out of the cinema as we were performing it! If you look at it on the video, I’ve got hold of her wrist really tightly, it looks like a love thing but it’s not, it’s to stop her running away! *laughs*

So this ‘Durch Die Nacht (Into the Night)’ documentary for German TV with Midge Ure…how did that come about? It looked a fun night!

It was a lot of fun, Hasko Baumann, the director, contacted Midge about it. The concept is they arrive at your house and follow you… they don’t say anything or interfere. When I read about it in the email, I thought: “What? How does that work?” So there’s two crews, one with you and one on location plus cameras in the car. They just put two people together, film them and make an hour programme out of it. We filmed from 5.30pm until 12.45am constantly with me and Midge ranting about the state of play! *laughs*

Midge was also on the first BEF album as part of THE NANCY BOYS doing backing vocals on the Paula Yates sung track ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’…

…yes, it was me, Martyn, Midge and Bob Geldof… THE NANCY BOYS! *laughs*

You also did backing vocals on ‘The Gift’ track ‘Antilles’ and you co-wrote ‘Personal Heaven’ with Midge for X-PERIENCE which was a hit in Germany. Any chance of you doing you more work with him?

Yeah, it’s funny, I said that to him the other day. We get on really well and we’re good friends. When he came round, I was playing ‘Wild Is The Wind’ on guitar and he said he loved it, we like the same things. So I said “You know what? We should just do something together”. Instead of half a day’s work, we should really consider doing something together… I think people would be interested. It’s never really occurred to us, we’re just friends outside of music really.

I’ll tell you a funny story about Midge… I was in Cornwall with my wife and parents. We were sitting in this bar and this girl walks past with a small girl and a guy; I thought “that looks like Sheridan (Midge’s wife) and that could be Midge… hang on, it is Midge!!”. So I shouted “MIDGE!” but he just ignored me! So I thought: “that can’t be Midge” but my parents went: “go and ask… he might be deaf”. So I ran after him! I went “MIDGE” and he turned round and saw me and went: “F***ing hell, I thought you were just some nutcase shouting my name!” I said: “I AM!” *roars of laughter*

There’s a book due out shortly by David Buckley called ‘Electric Dreams: The Human League, Heaven 17 and the Sound of the Steel City’. Are you involved in this?

I’ve done a couple of interviews for it, but there’s been a few delays for various reasons.

With all the recent HEAVEN 17 activity of the last few years, do you miss Ian Craig Marsh being around at all?

We are still really close… I say “are” even though we’ve not spoken to him for several years. He just very slowly stopped being in contact with Martyn first, then me. And then Lindsay, my wife who was always the one who could get him to answer, he stopped with her too. He then just totally disappeared.

And when we started to do stuff again, we emailed him and asked if he would like to be involved… we didn’t hear back, so we asked again… nothing. Then we said “If we don’t hear back, we’re just going to do it anyway and presume that you don’t want to do it”. But I still feel completely the same about him, although he’s never explained why he went. Y’know, there’s still all the love there and he’s a brother but it’s weird, we’re all Facebook friends! *laughs*

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Glenn Gregory

Special thanks to Sacha Taylor-Cox at Impressive PR

The double CD+DVD box set of ‘The Luxury Gap’ is released on 22nd October 2012 by Virgin/EMI Records

‘The Luxury Gap’ UK and German 2012 Tour includes:

Liverpool 02 Academy (23rd October) , Glasgow 02 Academy (24th October), Newcastle 02 Academy (26th October), Sheffield 02 Academy (27th October), Birmingham 02 Academy (29th October), Bristol 02 Academy (Tue 30th October), Aschaffenburg Colos-Saal (10th December), Hamburg Fabrik (11th December), Berlin C-Club (12th December), Köln Live Music Hall (13th December), Leipzig Anker (14th December)

https://www.heaven17.com/

https://www.facebook.com/heaven17official/

https://twitter.com/heaven17bef

Text and Interview Chi Ming Lai
Live photos by Richard Price, Steve Gray and Chi Ming Lai
23rd September 2012, updated 21st October 2018

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