Ultravox

Rip It Up, Issue 55, 1 February 1982, Page 10

Ultravox

Ultravox have never been a favourite media band. It shouldn't worry them, with their commercial success, but it does. Like anybody, they want to be liked by everyone. They feel they're nice enough guys, so why are things so heavy? Nobody in the media liked Ultravox in the punk days, they used synthesisers and were thus very old hat. Later, when synthesisers made an industrial comeback, everyone cited Ultravox as an influence. Now they've come the full circle, recalling the weighty, ponderous days of ELP and Yes. Cant you hear the screams? Ultravox with John Foxx had a certain decaying elegance, the sound of old Europe. Now it's 1982, Foxx is gone, and I m talking with keyboards-violin player Billy Currie and drummer Warren Cann. They're quite ready for the inevitable why-did-John-quit question. "It was a good thing overall," says Currie. "John wanted to do solo music and for the rest of us, it just wasn't working. It was great to have Midge, mainly because he's an instrumentalist as well as a vocalist, that's what we wanted. "I was very ecstatic about it, to tell you the truth, says Cann. "I was at the point where I was leaving if John didn't leave. It was a mixture of personality and musical differences."

Seems I've heard that song before. "He really wanted to minimalise things, which was quite the opposite of what I wanted to do, and, as it turned out, what the rest of the guys wanted to do," says Currie. "Our interests were more into branching out and extending yourself musically. More into an area of free soloing, that's an area we've kept on purpose. "It was difficult, because when we wrote something, John would always want to be the originator. He was very precious about his lyrics. It was 'I have the concept, from the words'. I really fuckin' hated it, because it was like 'Lie down, sonny, don't touch'." So, things were a little bitchy. Currie isn't surprised by what Foxx has done since. "I think it's quite good that he's continuing," says Currie ("Especially at his age," chips in Cann). "Metamatic is what I expected, which is what we didn't want to do. It's fairly contrived. I remember at the end of the last tour with him, he said he'd like to go and get his own studio scene together. It gets down to a basic point of money, because he was making most of the money, from publishing, and he could afford to do that. He said he wanted to get more in tune with the underground scene, things that were coming out on Rough Trade. That was quite fashionable at the time. "The next thing I saw was John on Top Of The Pops, singing 'Underpants', sorry, 'Underpass', which is totally opposite to what he was talking about." Currie and Cann feel they're at a peak now, obviously in the commercial sense, but also artistically. "I think the next album is going to be a solid development, a gelling point from the last two," says Currie. "So many people have hooked onto Midge's publicised past, and they don't really know anything about our individual

pasts," says Cann. "They think of Billy, Chris and me as the weirdos, with Midge as the more commercial mind which sells more records. I have to state, absolutely, and categorically, that is not the case. "Both Vienna and Rage In Eden have been very successful albums, but the one track that kicked the whole thing off was the single 'Vienna'. You couldn't possibly imagine a more uncommercial track. If you were going to sit down and write a really commercial track, that is the last thing you'd come up with. We've been a success on our own terms." So what was the attraction in Midge Ure, a pop musician of seemingly opposite backgrounds? "He had a sense of humour," says Cann. "And he's a very, good musician. We just instantly got along well with each other, we had similar ideas, and where they differed, it was in a complementary way. That sparked things off." "Midge wanted to play with some people that he quite respected," says Currie. "He'd heard some of our stuff and thought we were capable, on a level where he needed stimulating. Like, the Rich Kids was a rather concocted thing." "When he came along, the very first thing we did was just play," says Cann. "We asked Midge which of our numbers he liked the most, he named a few songs, and we just played those. It was amazing, the solidity he added to it." Solidity, humour, musicianship. Ultravox may have displayed the last quality at Sweetwaters, but they lacked in the other departments. Technically they were excellent, clear and crisp sound with all the dynamic elements working right. But they were so cold. Their music was devoid of humanity. No passion, only logic. TJo anger, only petulance. No release, only anaesthetic. Music without life, soul or body. Is this superficial sound the reflection of a superficial age? I hope not.

Duncan Campbell