The Art of Longevity Season 13, Episode 3: Midge Ure

From his early days with proto-punk pop band Slik, through his tenure with ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock’s Rich Kids, the creation of Visage, and touring with Thin Lizzy, to his major league success with Ultravox, and then his pivotal musical role in Band Aid and Live Aid, Midge Ure was a constant and significant force in the evolving music scene of the late seventies and eighties. 2026 sees his first release of new material in twelve years, a double album entitled A Man Of Two Worlds. 

In this episode of The Art Of Longevity, Midge talks to Fenner Pearson about his long career in music, his bold decision to release an album of instrumental music as part of his new double-album, and his plans for taking it on tour with a full band. Along the way, they discuss changes to the music industry and technology over the last fifty years, and how his Mum made egg and chips for Phil Lynott the first time he and Midge met.

There is little doubt about it, Midge is a British music legend and modest to a fault. A typically understated and delightful chat. 

The Art of Longevity Season 13 is powered by Bang & Olufsen. 

The book of the podcast, Riding the Rollercoaster, is now available. 

Transcript

Keith Jopling 0:00

Hello and welcome back to The Art of Longevity, season 13. Some amazing guests. We have Oliver Arnolds, Ladytron, Midge Orr, some others lining up that I am very excited about. Amazing artists with fascinating careers. In the conversations this season, we'll be testing out some of the themes of longevity in music as written in the book. Riding the Roller Coaster. Out May the 12th, 2026. You can pre-order it now from all online bookshops, and you can buy it in the shops from May 12th. This season leads up to the book's release, so look out for more news on that and your invitation to the launch party. We'll also be doing another Art of Longevity Live with Bangin' Olifson, so look out for that. Okay, let's get going. Season 13 of the Art of Longevity.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Hi, I'm Fenner Pearson. Welcome to the Art of Longevity. I'm delighted for this episode to welcome Midge. Many of you know from Ultra Rocks, but uh has been in various bands, had an extraordinary and varied career, solo career as well. So welcome to the Art of Longevity, Midge. Thank you. Welcome aboard. Obviously, part of what's driving us chatting today is the fact you've got this new album coming out. I think your first studio album for 12 years of new material.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm getting slow in my old age.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Well, I was kind of asked what my first question really was, why now? Is it just you've got an album sort of the material you want to put out, or do you just do you sit down and go, right, I'm gonna write and record a new album?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

I think when you're not touring, you know, touring and writing at the same time. Many people can do it, but I can't. I have to kind of you know clear everything aside and you know, empty your brain and get into the studio and do something. Um, so I can't do them in parallel. So the touring has been fairly intense in the last you know 12 years, but that still doesn't excuse why it's taken such a long time. There are a myriad of reasons that it has taken as long as it has. Some of it is self-inflicted, uh, some of it is uh self-doubt. Is there anyone really desperate to hear another track by mid you or you know, can I write something that's as interesting as I've written in the past, or possibly, you know, hopefully more interesting? Uh so all that self-doubt, the idea that if you have a body of work, you know, you last long enough in this industry, you've got a lot of songs that you've written over the years. And uh sometimes you you think you've come up with something new and you spend a lot of time working on it, and then you realize in a moment of horror that this actually sounds very much like something you'd done 25 years before. So there's elements of that, but also you know, deviation. I get bored. I I do I make music completely on my own. I don't have an engineer, I don't have any musicians around me. I do if I need people to come and perform on it. But the way I I write is very odd. I I use the machines, I use the computer, I I use you know the modern technology um to create an idea, to create the soundbeds, to create the the elements that make a song, but not necessarily in a linear fashion. In the old days you used to start with the intro. You know, now you don't have to. Now you can start with just an idea and think, well, that that's that's quite an interesting, you know, verse part or an interesting link to take it into a chorus. And then you can reassemble it, you know, just like you know, word processing. You can just edit it and put the middle and then the beginning and the beginning at the end and all of that stuff. So it becomes kind of infinite. So I write my songs like that. The downside of that is that there's no one here that you can sound off. There's no one here to say, you know what, that's not very good, or maybe you should rethink that section there, or I've got a great idea. And that is self-imposed. All of those elements just make you make you weary when you're about to release something new.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

But you, I mean, you're talking about having sort of self-doubt, but you've done something quite bold, haven't you, with this new album? It's a double album, and the first disc of that is completely instrumental. Where's that come from? Would is that did you consciously make a departure? Did you find yourself writing instrumental music? What was the thinking behind that?

SPEAKER_00 4:56

There's always been a love of it. You know, if you look back to, you know, even you know, Ultrabox were an awkward band. Um, even to, you know, the VN album, the first album I did with the band, the opening track, Astradyne, it's a six-minute long instrumental, which the Americans abhorred. They couldn't they said you can't put an album out, you've got to, you've got to open it with the first single, and of course, that's not going to be a single. And of course, we didn't listen to them. So there's been an element of that all the way through. I've written instrumental music and put on various albums over the years, but I've never sat down and written a complete album of instrumental music. Two reasons for that. One was lockdown, one was that's you know, that's uh enforced staticness, you know, being at home. Uh luckily I had a studio, so it kept me sane. Uh, being at home with an empty diary, uh, which is unheard of. I've not had an empty diary forever, you know, forever. There's always been something next week, or something, you know, like we all have. So there was an element of that that made me start to think more about the instrumental stuff. There was an environment, there was an atmosphere there that was created by circumstance, not something you decided to do, something that you were kind of forced into doing. So an element of that, plus the way I write songs, the only way I can gauge, because I had no one else around me, the only way I can gauge whether a song is worth pursuing or not is to take it to a certain level and then walk away from it. Go and do something else for a month, then go back to it in the cold light of day, and hopefully your creative instincts will tell you whether it's any good or not. You know, you walk in, hear it cold, and you go, Yeah, I love that. I'll take it further.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

So during lockdown, I had nothing else to do. So I started working on instrumental music. So I was writing instrumental music to get me away from the songs, and then I'd listen to the song, carry on the song, then go back to instrumental music when I had to. So I was ping-ponging between these two worlds. And of course, when I finally played it to someone, the whole thing, and I suggested it was two separate albums. They thought I was crazy and said, No, they've both been created with the same environment, the same kind of sounds, the same atmospheres, the same filmic elements. They belong together, they're sister and brother. They they they're the same family, so that hence putting it out together.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Yeah. When you take this on tour, will you be playing some of that instrumental? I mean, because the music, um, people haven't obviously haven't heard it yet, but I mean, I I'm lucky to have heard it, and I think it's beautiful. I mean, is that something? Are you gonna try and bring that into the concerts?

SPEAKER_00 7:39

I'm gonna bring an element of it in. You know, I've learned if I've learned anything over the years, is not to go out and play your entire new album before anyone's heard it. Because irrespective of how interesting or how good or how palatable it might be, that's not what they're there to hear. You know, it's just a coincidence the fact that the album is coming out the same day the tour starts. They're both named the same thing, A Man of Two Worlds, because they both dictate that. But the tour kind of came first, the tour concept came first, and the plan was to play some of the older instrumental pieces that I've written over the years, you know, just maybe four or five of them, peppering the hits and the album tracks and the fan favourites and all of that stuff, and trying to do it in a different way. So I wouldn't dare to go out and play half a dozen instrumental tracks that nobody'd ever heard. Or and even if it was just an album of songs, I wouldn't go out and do the entire album. You choose maybe one or two that you you play and give people a chance to get to know the music first so that that because everything else that's there, they'll they'll kind of recognise you hope.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Yeah. So where do you start when I mean it must be a kind of bit of a double-edged sword because you have got this huge, amazing back catalogue, but you've got what, a couple of hours? I mean, how how do you pick out the songs you want to play? I mean, do you have some that you go, well, people will never forgive me if I don't play this, but actually, do you know what I really like this one? How do you go about putting it all together?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Well, there are a variety of elements involved in all of that now, you know, that you'd have to take so much into consideration. I know a lot of artists don't, they just say I'm great, I can play what I want, uh, you know, and and and to hell with the audience. But I don't think that's fair. People have given up their hard-burdened money to come and see you. They're not necessarily there to hear the new stuff, they're there because they bought something in the past or it resonated with them at some point in their lives, and of course they want to hear that. They don't want to hear a dance version of it, they don't want to hear a remix of it, they want to hear something that resembles what they remember that that you know kicks them inside. Also, announcing a tour is such a weird thing because the moment you announce it, people get proactive, but then you get the people saying, Well, hold on a second, I'm a certain age now, I can't stand up in a stand-up venue. I've got to sit down, you know, and then you get people saying, I don't want to sit down, I'm still 18 inside, and I want to get up and dance. So you get that to take into consideration as much as the content of the show, you know, the balance between what they expect to hear, and I mean there's key songs that they will expect to hear, you know, what they would find interesting, and what you want to do for yourself. So the instrumental stuff uh initially was for me. I wanted to play those things because I'm not brave enough to go out and do an entire concert of instrumental music yet. I'll wait until the voice is completely gone before I do that.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

So, what's it like now? Because if you've got your, I mean, I assume you've got your band together now and you're in rehearsal. Has it been interesting taking these tracks that you've written on your own for the new album and suddenly having them in a band context, hearing them being played with and by other people?

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Well, we haven't reached that point yet. As I said, everything I've mentioned so far about the tour is theory. Okay. You know, I I've sat with the band and we have figured out because of technology, um, you know, there are four of us, and because of technology, we can do a lot of this stuff between just four of us. So we have to sit down and go, okay, who's got a spare hand? Who can play that part? Who can do this? You know, the the technically we use one big keyboard each on stage, yeah. An 88-note keyboard. But these days you can section the keyboard into separate parts, and each part can have a different sound.

SPEAKER_04 11:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

So you could have the keyboard player playing a cello thing on his left hand and a piano in his right hand, and you know, all of that stuff. So you technically you have to sit down and and break it down to its component parts and figure out who can do what. That's where we've got to. We think we can do this elongated, segueed piece where we take people on the journey, you know, that maybe half an hour, 40 minutes or whatever of non-stop sequenced music, which technically is very difficult. Physically, I haven't actually thought about it. I can never tell what the next song is. I've got to have a big set list in front of me. And I'm not sure that will work in a situation where you've got to segue from one tune into something else, uh, and still be able to change from guitar to keyboard or bass or whatever instrument it happens to be. So, right now, in our heads, it works. Once we get into rehearsals, then we'll find out if it really works or not. That's the segue. Hearing something new come to life live is really quite exhilarating. For sure. You know, it's really quite exciting, you know, because I've done everything on the on these tracks, one instrument at a time, one piece at a time, making sure that that piece that I'm putting in isn't redundant, that it actually fits with everything else, that it makes sense in the big picture. A bit like painting by numbers. You don't want to put a big purple splodge in the middle of your beautiful painting if it doesn't fit just because it fills a hole, you know. So then you hear those parts coming together played by other people. And that's really exhilarating. That's really exciting.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Sure. I mean, you mentioned you do a lot of touring, or you have done a lot of touring over the years, and you've seen you a number of times myself. I mean, is that just something you positively enjoy? Is it just the act of getting out and playing music to people? I mean, it's been something you've obviously been doing your whole life.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Oh, but I have been doing it my whole life. I was allowed to do it before I was allowed anywhere near a recording studio or ever made a record or you know, anything. Touring, uh, well, performing, I suppose, walking on stage, getting behind a microphone and doing your thing came first. Uh, so it's it's kind of like my first love when it comes to music, it's kind of what you do. I didn't need someone else's permission to go and do it. You know, you set up your first band and you're out there playing church halls and whatever. And the buzz that you got from that was amazing. Uh, you know, never dreaming that you'd be allowed into a recording studio one day. It's still my fallback position, as it were. You know, until you get tired of doing it, if you've done it long enough. You want to you want the you want the solace of being in the studio and starting to write something new because you've played the old stuff a million times.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

So it's uh the grass is always greener, you know.

Keith Jopling 14:24

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SPEAKER_02 14:49

Going back to when you first started out, I mean, I think I read, did you get your first guitar when you were 10? And I mean as far as I can tell, completely self-taught. I mean, these days, if you're learning an instrument, there's YouTube tutorials and all sorts going on, but you just sat down and and completely did it yourself, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:08

It was the only way to do it back then, you know, if you didn't have the wherewithal to have a you know a music teacher, a guitar teacher, or a piano teacher or something. Um and we didn't. Um you you kind of did you did it yourself. You know, you'd you you'd find a mate who had a guitar as well, and and you know, you'd sit around each other's you know, bedrooms playing records, you know, at 45s over and over and over, putting the needle back on at the beginning and and sitting there with the guitar trying to figure out what the next chord was.

SPEAKER_04 15:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

And that's how you learned. You learn you learn by osmosis, you know, just kind of you know, and and then eventually, instinctively, you you kind of you get to know what the chord changes are, but it's a strange way of learning. A great bass player that used to work with Mick Carn from the band Japan, a really unique style, but he was the first person to tell you he'd no idea what he was doing on the on the bass, technically. You'd say play a B flat, and you'd say, Well, what does it sound like? And you'd have to play it to him, and he'd and instinctively go to that note.

unknown 16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

But he didn't know technically what his fingers should be, and that's what created his totally unique, amazing, you know, sound, his style.

SPEAKER_04 16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

So you you find yourself later in life thinking, God, I wish somebody's sent me for piano lessons because you know I'd be much better at chord structures or or you know, working on uh scoring music, you know, orchestrating and stuff like that. But yeah, I don't, I do I do it by it hit and miss.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Those bands that you loved when you were you were younger. I mean, I think you mentioned small faces in the in the uh autobiography. I guess that's part of though what gave you that great pop sensibility that you were learning from all these great songs.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Well, I was lucky enough, and I mean you see those dreadful t-shirts saying, you know, I'm an old guy, but I would yeah, I saw the best bands or something like that, you know. Those things you see for grandads. And it's true, sadly. So I was brought up in a situation where in the tenement slum in the outskirts of Glasgow, we had a radio. So radio played the best pop music ever. You know, and it didn't really matter. You went into you weren't part of a you know uh a status quo army type thing. You went into one particular era of music, you were into whatever the radio played. You heard it, you heard the melodies, you heard the structure, you heard the atmospheres that were created with the echoes and the reverbs, and you know, and that stuff just sinks in. So yeah, the you know, you you look at what we had available to us, and it was television and radio. And back then, you know, you look at a chart, you know, a chart, top 40 chart or something from 1967, and it's got the small faces and the who and the Beatles and the Stones and the Kinks and you know, the Supremes, and just some of the best constructed pop music ever.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Yeah, and you're learning from those great writers, aren't you? Yeah, without thinking about it as going in, you know. I suppose your your first signed band was slick, wasn't it? Now, there's just one story I would love for you to tell for people who haven't read your autobiography, is how you first met Phil Lynnett, because you weren't you weren't even signed at that point, were you?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

No, no, and the band hadn't changed their name at that point either. I was I was in a local Glasgow band, um full-time band. I'd left my apprenticeship to join them as a guitarist. I was 18 or 19. Um, I'd seen, you know, very ugly Thin Lizzie playing a tiny club in Glasgow. I'd seen Skid Roll with a 16-year-old Gary Moore, you know, playing guitar. So I used to see these bands, and it's what made me want to do it in the first place. And I was driving the band's transit van around Glasgow and I see Phil Linett walking down the street, which is quite an odd sight. And I pulled the van over and jumped out and said, Look, you don't know me. I'm a local band, local musician, big fan, fantastic. And he went home to my mum's house and she made him you know egg and chips and fed him because he was so skinny. And uh and he remembered that a couple of years later. We bumped into each other in a tube station in London, and he said, You're that kid. And I said, Yeah, he said, you know, he said, Come on, let's go and hang out. So we did, and we just started hanging out together. Fantastic. Bizarre.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, it fascinates me again, uh you know, reading the book in the book and how you you start off in this band, you changed your name to Slick, you have a little bit of success with that. Glenn Matlock comes along and recruits you for rich kids. But already, you know, in the press, that first band was called Pop Punk immediately before was it punk pop? Before, like about a week later, the term punk rock came along. So you were right in there at the start of punk, and then you're at Club for Heroes and you're putting Visage together. You know, there's the going off touring with Thin Lizzie as well, and you seem to be right in the thick of things. So, you know, from my perspective, you suddenly appear with Ultravox, you know, the new front man for UltraVox, but you were really there, weren't you? You were just, I mean, particularly around Club for Heroes and the whole of that blitz club environment.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Well, I've been described in the past as the zealig of pop, you know, and I seem to be there in the background. Um you're right. And maybe it's a maybe it was me striving, you know. Again, uh an analyst would make a much better job of it. If I was lying on a sofa or a couch somewhere, I'm sure they they could unpick it all, unravel all my past and and tell me where this desire to keep going comes from.

SPEAKER_03 20:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Um, and I think it's something to do with possibly the um looking for the antidote for what my my first band slick, you know, it I we didn't write the songs, it was the Bay City Rollers, writers, and producers who made our records. The record got to number one and it didn't mean a light to me at all. It's nothing to do with me at all, except my voice was on it. We weren't allowed to play on the record. So striving from that, from being seen as a disposable T Bop pop singer to try and grow up, maybe that's what I was looking for. You know, The Rich Kids was great. I bought a synthesizer through the rich kids that killed the band, but we formed Visage through that, which meant that I met the guys from magazine and Billy Curry, keyboard player with UltraVox. And that led me into Ultra Box. And the moment I joined UltraVox, the first thing we did was was find out whether it sounded good or not, whether it worked or not. In theory, this a theory and practice of life, isn't it? In your head it works until you plug in and try it. And it was great. The moment I plugged in, it was amazing. It was amazing. I just felt as though I was at home.

SPEAKER_04 21:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

But it taken me it'd Me a while to get to that point. Whereas normally people might wait to get to that point. It's a natural thing you have to learn as you go along. But all of my stepping stones were kind of public in a way. So by the time I joined UltraVox, people said, Oh, he's already done half a dozen different things.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

I mean, it was interesting with UltraVox. I mean, it it kind of makes sense to me that you're saying that it it clicked in that way because you know, I mean, Vienna came out when I would have been, I think, probably about 15. You know, I had a brief flirtation with, I mean, I've loved music all my life, had a brief flirtation with Scar, and then got into electronic music. So, yeah, the first albums I had was Human League, Depeche Mode, OMD, Soft Cell, all that kind of group, and of course, Ultravox. But the thing that struck me, and I was saying this to a friend of mine the other day, was Ultravox seemed to come straight out with just this incredible authority. You seemed like the most grown-up of those bands, uh, if that makes any sense. And I think a big part of that actually was your voice as well. You know, when we heard Vienna, and I mean I mean the album as well as the single, it just put a lot of stuff in the shade. I'm interested in how you first started writing the songs for that album, and also if in a nerdy point of view, quite interested in hearing about what it was like working with Connie Plank.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Ultravox had been in existence for people who don't know it. They'd been in existence way before I was there. They'd already had three albums out, and they broke up after just after the third, the release of the third album, which was an album I thought was really, really getting there. It was a brilliant, it was a great record and great production, hence working with Connie Planck, German engineer producer. When I joined the band, I we started talking about uh you know how how we should go about it. We instantly said to get the elephant out of the room, we split the songwriting equally, all of us. Doesn't matter who's done what, yeah, we do it all. That takes the poison out of the situation, you know, a potential poison out of the situation. I've seen so many bands break up because of that. So all we were interested in doing was making interesting music. Weirdly, the strangest piece of music that we probably did at the time became a huge commercial success. When everything about it cries that it shouldn't have been a commercial success, it was too long, it was too slow, it speeds up. All of those things, Vienna, yeah. We refused to edit it, refused to cut it down for radio. So despite ourselves, it became a commercial success. The guys had already been doing this for quite a few years, they understood more about technology and computers and you know how to how to you know perform with live drums and a drum machine, how to lock in really tightly with stuff, much more than I did. So I was learning from them in that first album. We insisted that everything we did, you know, nobody walked in and said, right, I've got this song and played it. And then everyone else just added their bits. We walked in and we'd jam something. You know, Billy'd come in with a keyboard riff or something, and or Chris would come up with, you know, whatever it happened to be. And we would all contribute. We'd all sit and add our bits to it. And most of uh most of the Vienna album, I think the majority, at least 50% of the lyrics, were written by Warren. I didn't feel comfortable enough to to stick my neck out and and kind of dominate. I didn't want to be the new kid on the block, I wanted to just fit in as part and band member, you know. So, you know, Warren wrote Sleepwalk. He wrote the lyrics for that, and uh and a few others, Passing Strangers, possibly. Maybe I did that. I can't remember. Who knows? But it was very much a communal effort to do this stuff. And of course, when we started writing, the big question was, well, who do we get to produce it? And I'm sitting in the back going, hold on a second, what do you mean how do we get to produce it? I've not worked with Connie Plank. You know, I'm interested in how all this stuff works. You know, I want to I'd love to work with Connie, who very graciously agreed. And it was great, it was wonderful. Uh so Ultravox were were a band who were quite precious about the music and the way the music worked. Didn't really want a producer coming in and changing all of that. Right. So Connie was perfect. Connie, Connie worked in sound, Connie worked in images in his head. You know, there's a classic story about, you know, when he heard Vienna getting played for the first few times, and we explained what we wanted, and and we came into the control room to talk to him in German but broken English, and he said, uh he said, What do you think? And he said, he said, I see a I see a man in an empty ballroom at a piano, and he's very tired because he's played the same tune for 40 years, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. You know. And the image that he just said was exactly what he captured sonically, and that's just incredible. Most producers don't work that way, but Connie did. Yeah. So um, so yeah, it was brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Well, I mean, it was such a I mean, that whole period, I think, in terms of fashion music, the stuff that came out of the Blitz Club. I mean, I I think you say, you know, that it kind of was that it spawned London's next 10 years of creativity, uh, is something that you say you say in the book. And I felt, as a listener, as someone on the receiving end of that, that it did. I mean, I know that term new romantic just kind of got bandied around and slapped on all sorts of different bands, really, and no one ever no one ever seemed to like it. But I mean that particularly that of the end of the video to me was it was just definitive of a look and a style. And to a kid growing up in South London, it was just such an aspirational thing to see. You know, it was just and it I mean, I mean, this must have been pre-MTV, I guess, but that must be one of the first real major videos. And then, of course, you actually went on to produce some of Old Trox's videos yourself, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 28:10

We we directed them, yeah. Um, you know, the the video thing was an an oddity. Uh it was so as it was an extension of the music, you know, just like we we never ever made the music and then just gave the music to the you know the record label who then stuck it in some sleeve that had nothing to do with the the band, you know, a picture of the band on the front or something. We took it right through to the nth degree, and it wasn't megalomania, it's just that we knew what we wanted, you know.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Um, so so when it came to doing the video, which were the first one we did was actually for a previous single, Passing Strangers. And we used a guy called Russell Mulcay, young Australian, uh um, he was an editor, but he wanted to direct. And we we set the parameters, you know, it was quite simple. We said we don't want it in video. Video's too squeaky clean, it's horrible. It's it's it's soulless. We want it on 16mm film, which was an expensive thing to do, uh, and a long-winded thing to do. But you get that grain, you get that atmosphere, you get that quality. There's no point making atmospheric music and then sticking it in this squeaky clean environment, this that's you know, high-tech nonsense. So we ended up making a video for Passing Strangers, which didn't do an awful lot, and not many people got to see it at the time. But the the parameters were set, you know, shoot it in 16 millimeters, transfer it to video, crop the screen top and bottom, make make it go from black and white, film noir, long shadows on wet cobbles, you know, all of that imagery that you saw in Sunday afternoon movies when you were a kid. Yeah. That's what we put into it. And also that element of uh, you know, not knowing whether it's it's you know, set in the past or the future. It's a kind of got a foot in both. You know, there's something really old-fashioned about a viola solo over an electronic backing track.

SPEAKER_03 30:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Um, there's something odd about it. Uh, so we all of those elements, you know, that that imagery, like sound bites, but pictures in your head, that that all that was all really important at the time. Lyrically, it didn't have to make sense. Yeah. But the line that you sang or the words that you sang had to create a little picture in your head.

Keith Jopling 30:26

The art of longevity is brought to you with Bang and Olifson. Since 1925, Bang and Oleson has created iconic audio and home entertainment products to the highest standards of sound, craft, and design. You can find more about the partnership on our web pages and by signing up to the mailing list where you can then get episodes first, plus invitations to events and office. Finally, we want to get to 100 shows and beyond with the art of longevity. And the only way we can do that is with your help and advocacy. So please rate, review, and share the podcast wherever you can. Back to the conversation to wrap up this episode, and we'll be back with another great guest very soon.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

I mean, in that period, so you've had the success with Ultravox. I can't remember when you did the single with Mick Kahn, but that was around, that would have been early 80s as well, right? 828. But then again, from my perspective, because of course, then there's no there's no web, you know, you you watch Top of the Pops hoping to see your favourite artist. You you look at the music papers every week, but that's the only insight you get into what's going on. But then I would see you suddenly you you cropped up with doing the live aid, you know, the Prince's Trust you did for several years, and then you were the guy doing you were there for Nelson Mandela's birthday. From the outside, it looked like you were just kind of I mean, you know, this self-court guitarist you're saying you're you know you've not got the sort of music theory, yet you seem to be the go-to guy. Did it feel like that to you?

SPEAKER_00 31:58

It did feel like that to me for a while. Um, and maybe that's got to do with character, you know. I don't know. I mean, I I saw I saw you know the social media's a nightmare. I saw something the other day where I had reviewed other people's singles, you know, for for one of the music magazines 40 years ago.

SPEAKER_04 32:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

And it was I I sat and cringed. I sat there, I was scathing. So I must have been a cocky little shit, you know, I must have been a horrible little character. And uh uh and I found that quite quite upsetting. You're thinking, oh God, I want to go back and fix that. And of course you can't, you know, it's done, it's there, it's it's out there. But on the other side of the coin, I must have been reasonably personable to deal with things like the Princess Trust, where everyone on stage is a megastar. You got a band that consists of Clapton and Phil Collins and Elton John and Martin Offler, and you think, what? How do you deal with these guys? But on a musical level, it was fine, you know. So and on a personable level, I suppose it was fine. Maybe that's why it kind of happened to me. Uh for a while I was the the go-to guy.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Um, but it's I'd be petrified doing it now. I would be absolutely petrified. I think I was naive at the time, maybe.

SPEAKER_04 33:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Naivy is wonderful, you can do a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

So, and then from there, you kind of moved into your into your solo career. And I mean, what was that like suddenly going from that band situation, always working with other people, and suddenly going, now I want to work on my own? Did you did you want control of the whole song, the whole writing process? What what was driving you at that point?

SPEAKER_00 33:40

I think there's maybe an element of that if I'm going to be absolutely truthful. You know, you you do you know, as I said, the Vienna album, you know, a lot of the lyrics written by one.

SPEAKER_04 33:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

But as the subsequent albums came along, you know, I was writing more and more and more of them, and kind of taking over that respect and directing the videos, and you know, and that's not not always a good thing. I didn't choose to leave UltraVox. What happened after Live Aid? You know, I'd been working on a solo record as a side project, not instead of UltraVox, but alongside UltraVox, the same way my previous solo single did had been done, you know, No Regrets.

SPEAKER_04 34:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Um, so it wasn't to replace UltraVox at all. But when you work on solo stuff, you end up working with lots of different musicians. That was great fun. That was really vibrant and exciting. You know, Mark King from level 42 and Nick Carl and Mark Brzezicki from Big Country and all of that stuff. They're all brilliant and fabulous. But the intention was always to go back to UltraBox. I wasn't leaving. We took a six-month break because we've been working non-stop for years. Uh, and during that six-month break, band-aid thing happened. Then LiveAid. So the band played at Live Aid. It's the last time we played together in that format up till 10 years ago, whatever. And um, and and I got dragged away. I I was doing a solo tour to back up the gift album uh with If I Was, and uh and Band-Aid and all the periphery of Band-Aid kept me away from UltraBox for quite a long time. And by the time I got back to UltraBox, the guys had been writing stuff, the three of them, well, the two of them, three of them, uh, with each other. And I came back and kind of slightly different person, like we all were.

SPEAKER_04 35:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

And I listened to what they were doing, and it did nothing for me at all. But rather than which I mean, I should have been brave enough to say, look, I don't like this, this isn't good. I don't know what you're trying to do. It was kind of out there, so I got involved and did my bit to try and make it as good as possible. So it was still a united front. But the album that came out was very disparate, it was very old, it was all over the shop. We had you know, we had George Martin doing strings on you know all in one day, and we had the chieftains playing, you know, all fall down. And it was just kind of you know, brass sections, and it was we were lost. Yeah, we were very lost, and you can hear it in the record, you know, it's it's marked it there, it's like a headstone, you know. This is where we kind of died, and we didn't realize it at the time. We knew it wasn't right, yeah. Uh, and also add into the factor that by the time we were doing this, we're 84, 85, everybody and his brother was a synth band. They'd all bought synthesizers, they're all making pop songs with synthesizers and sequencers and and all of that. So we wanted to get away from it, yeah, which was ludicrous because the synths were never the major thing that UltraVox did. We all used relational rock instruments, yeah, but synthesizers were part of it. So we we were just a lost band, and it became very apparent that it wasn't working. And I just said one day I'm I'm I'm gonna leave, and then we all left.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

What was the reunion? So was that 2010 you did that? Was that was it?

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Oh, was it better to memory than me? Yeah, it was it was 13, 14 years ago, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

So when you came back together, I mean, because uh because the other thing would have changed in that kind of 20-year period, of course, was that when you go to a gig now, the PA systems and everything are so much better. It must have been great playing those songs again suddenly with that sort of big, huge sound. Was it great getting back with them and doing that stuff again?

SPEAKER_00 37:29

It was a massive task. You know, I I had been working non-stop studios, so I've kept up with technology, I'd been touring a lot, uh, you know, all the way through the the Ultravox kind of fallow days, you know. I'd been touring non-stop. So I'd kept up with technology, any of monitors and you know, home recording and you know, computer recording and all of that. Uh Billy had been doing a bit of that, you know, with the home recording, but not live. So it was a massive learning curve, I think, for the others, certainly for Warren, yeah, um, who hadn't really played an awful lot over a long period, to come in and say, okay, we don't need to do that anymore. You don't need all of this stuff. This is how you do it now. And we all had to learn, they all had to learn, you know, uh software sequencing and software recording. And it was a massive task. In fact, that first tour that we did when we got back, the reason we got back was just to play the old songs again. Yeah. Through those, through that new system, the new sound systems and and the new way. We ended up in rehearsals twice as long as we spent touring because of the learning curve involved. So it was pure indulgent satisfaction that we got from that. We didn't get financial ri you know, yeah, yeah. Compensated for it. It was everything went on putting that tour together just to see because it was such a joy to go in there, even though we weren't using the same old analogue synthesizers and things that we'd been using in the 80s. We could create the sounds in the modern technology to do it.

SPEAKER_04 39:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Uh, and it was a joy to see the excitement when we fire up again. It was like being back in that rehearsal room the first day. Yeah, you know, you hear the sound and you go, Oh my god, I've forgotten how powerful the band were.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

You know?

SPEAKER_02 39:19

That's fantastic. I mean, I was going to ask you a question about your songwriting, and but I think you've kind of half-answered it, maybe, but because I was wondering how your so your songwriting and approach to songwriting has changed over the years. You've already alluded to the fact that nowadays you can find a verse, drop it into digital workstation, and chop and change things around. So has do you still sit down with a guitar and work stuff out, or has has your way of writing completely changed?

SPEAKER_00 39:48

Well, the the the studio has become my band, you know. As I said, the band would throw ideas together and bounce off each other and add and subtract and mold this thing into a finished track, yeah, you know, in a rehearsal room, you know, together. And in a way, modern technology enables me to do that. You know, I can I can write a section, I can concentrate on a section, and then write something else and go, well, that that builds really nicely into this if I put it there. Yeah, uh, and and sculpt it. So but it all starts with the seed of an idea. You've got to know what you want to write about. For sure. And then you create the create the ambience to to to make this thing happen, to make the the lyrics come. So the studio has become my band in a way.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

I wasn't asked about the lyrics, actually, because uh uh you know, it's it's it must be quite a weird thing, you know, especially when you've not written or put anything out for a few years, to suddenly almost say, Well, what am I going to write about? You know, suddenly at this point in time, I need some lyrics. What have I got? Uh I mean I noticed like uh, for example, on the The Man Who Stole Your Soul. You know, it's quite a quite a commentary on the way things are now. I mean, it's clearly kind of dark times, but I notice like at the end of that, there's an optimistic twist at the end of the song, isn't there? I mean there has to be something optimistic, otherwise it's gonna be so miserable. All I'm doing is adding to the throwing fuel on the fire, you know. But do you do you feel, do you feel still feel a sort of sense of optimism and you you hope.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

I feel a sense of hope. Yeah, you know, it can't go on forever. I I write, I've always written about what affects me, what I see and what it reads, and you know, what goes, what comes into my sitting room via television or radio or or whatever or social media now. 24-7 non-stop misery. It's there. Yeah, you can't escape it, you know. And the people who do escape it are are living in a bubble. You know, you you you've got to be concerned. You've got to be concerned with your family and the world that they're going to be living in, without sounding like, you know, standing on a soapbox.

SPEAKER_04 41:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

And music's a great way of doing that. You know, just don't ram it down people's throats. Just, you know, write a song with sensibilities and and feeling and and and and it will resonate with someone. For sure. You know, but for such a long time now, you know, God, we're, you know, with you know, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss and you know, all of that over this side of the Atlantic, you've got what's going on in the other side of Atlantic. We've got you know, multiple countries all bombing each other to bits, yeah. You know, or tap dancing on the edge of World War III, and then you know, you know, nuclear, you know, annihilation.

SPEAKER_04 42:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

And you can't ignore that stuff, yeah. But you can voice your opinions on it. It's not a solution, but you can say, hold on a second. The the track that's that's getting, you know, uh that we've led with on this this album release is thing called just words.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

You know, just what what that's it? Just words. Because words can be, you know, beautiful and words can be horrendous.

SPEAKER_03 42:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

And the amount of people in positions of power who are using words to separate and and hop and you know, uh just turn people against each other is abhorrent. So what I'm saying is, right, words are only words until you do something about it. So if you're sitting there going, right, we'll have to stop this, do something about it. If you're saying those words, that's what they're doing. They've said the words, and now they're acting upon them in a in a bad way, in a nasty way.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Yeah. But I guess your message to people is actually you're not alone in thinking that's wrong. Because we all know.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

One voice, one voice in a field might not get heard, but a million voices together. For sure. Uh, you can. You know, we we saw that with Band Aid, you know.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Yeah, absolutely, 100%. And the other thing I was gonna ask you about, I mean, I know you're back with Chrysalis now, which was that like coming home, or is it just another label? Is this field?

SPEAKER_00 43:45

No, it's it's great because what we've done with this is um we've we've uh revitalized uh the music fest, which was my label that I had back in the eighties um during uh during that period with Chrysalis. So And everything I'm going to put out with them, anything new or whatever, will go through uh Music Fest. So there's an identity there. And it's great that Chrysalis have been, you know, re-releasing a lot of the stuff and remixing a lot of the stuff, um, you know, doing new box sets for Ultra Box, and they've been incredibly generous with their time because a lot of labels would just go and do it without you to say so.

SPEAKER_04 44:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Um, but because we, you know, curated our stuff so so well, and and we took such a passion on you know the Peter Savile artwork and and the graphics and the imagery and all of that, they've come to us and said, right, let's do this together. So they've gone into the archives and found stuff that I'd forgotten we'd done, right? Uh and cleaned it all up and had it all, you know, transferred from tape to digital and and done the remixes, uh, you know, all of that stuff. So there's a lovely partnership now, albeit on a much smaller scale, yeah. Uh because record labels aren't the same power that they used to be. But it's a brilliant working relationship. And this is the first thing that I've put out with them that's new. So it is so far that's working really well. Touch would be.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

That's terrific. That's great. I was gonna say, I mean, yeah, I suppose the the thrust of this podcast is you know the art of longevity. What is it that uh helps someone to stay being successful being music for so long? And I think with you, it's clear it's a passion for music and an enjoyment of music. But I mean, if is there anything that you would say to someone who was maybe 19 or 20 now? I mean, it's a different world, isn't it, with Spotify and streaming and everything. But what is there anything you would say from your sort of position of wisdom to to someone that age?

SPEAKER_00 45:48

Um you know that many, many, many people are passionate about what they do, you know, the the the fortunate ones who get to do a job that's the you know, that's the that scratches their edge. Most people do a job that just pays them some money at the end of the week, like my dad did and whatever.

SPEAKER_04 46:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

So that's not just the only driving factor. I think you have to be a bit stupid. You have to be a bit thick and keep sticking your head in the lion's mouth. You know, you have to you have to know that whatever's written about you, good or bad, not to believe. You know, someone's gonna tell you a genius, and the next day somebody's gonna tell you you're an idiot. Um, you know, your great history that you've accrued over the years is seen as you know something wonderful, and then someone else sees it as baggage.

SPEAKER_04 46:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

You know, you cannot tick all the boxes, and you have to be able to get up, you know, and I hear I hear entrepreneurs talking about it all the time. Not everyone sets up a business and uh you know and it becomes instantly successful.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 46:53

You learn from your failures, yeah. You learn, but you have to you have to be thick skinned, you have to be just that little bit stupid to think next time, yeah, next time I'll get them. You know, this that this'll this will show them, you know, whatever it happens to be. So I think a mixture of all of those things, yeah, because most people don't get worse at what they do. You know, maybe the music industry is one of the few things that they used to think that. They used to think that you're all right, your time's up, you're now 35, yeah, you're finished, your mom's gone, you know, because that industry in particular in the music industry was seen as that area of the music industry was seen as youthful. So if you went beyond 35, you were finished, it was done. But every other genre of music you could go until you dropped blues, jazz, you know, classical, folk, all of those things. Pop rock music has now grown up. You know, you can go and see, you know, octagenarians on stage, you know, if you choose to, because it doesn't go away. So very few people get worse at what they do. If you were a if you were a you know uh I don't know, a car designer and you hit 65, could you still design a brilliant car? I reckon you probably could, because you've got what some people might see as baggage and other people might see as learning, as knowledge, you know. So we're in a position, a lucky position, where I'm still allowed to do this. And it I'm not saying that you know people saying nasty things about you doesn't hurt, it does.

SPEAKER_02 48:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Just try and avoid it, don't believe it.

SPEAKER_02 48:38

That's great advice to finish on Midge. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you and to meet you. Thanks very much indeed.