QUOTES

QUOTES ON.............

Steve was a bit of a fashion nazi and used to stop anyone who didnt look right
ROUTES OF ROCK-4.9.00 Monday




IM actually not that bad in the kitchen in fact in most couples I know s the men who delve into the kitchen. Women actually dont want to, I find, have anything to do with anything in the kitchen. Dishwashers, washing machines, cookers, that kind of thing
READY STEADY COOK. MONDAY 16.4.01



I used to sit on the veranda of my little house in the Caribbean of mastarte until the god in his infinite wisdom hit me with a hurricane and now a volcano and said a working class guy from Glasgow shouldnt have that house anyway
READY STAEDY COOK. MONDAY- 16.4.01





You meet up with these guys at various TV shows and you never really get the chance (to meet up with them)
READY STEADY COOK. MONDAY-16.4.01





It was very daunting coz id never been to America before. They stuck me on a concord and it was before Walkman, so I had this getto Blaster on my knee and a pile of tapes and a list of songs we were going to do at the concert. And concord gets to America pretty fast. I was desperately trying to learn these songs and within 24 hours I get the call or something IM on stage
THIS IS YOUR LIFE-28.3.01


"I'm just helping Lizzy out," "It's really not my sort of music - infact, I'm joining Ultravox on November 1. I was due to join them as guitarist and singer in September but they've agreed to wait until I've finished my dates with Lizzy."

"I couldn't stay with Lizzy. It's not really my sort of music. I'm just helping them out. It's great fun. There's no pressure on me."


"I met them again when Slik was going and then again in the Rich Kids."


"I've also played guitar to beef up some old Lizzy Decca tracks that're being put out as a compilation album soon."


"I think Gary Moore really wants to be a solo artist. He never stays for long with any group. I remember seeing him in the early days with Skid Row. He's a helluva guitarist. The thing is it's a really important time for Lizzy in the States. They're on the verge of doing it and they definitely don't need someone not turning up for dates. It was the management, I think, that pressed the button and fired him."





you cant sit and tell jokes with a funny nose and things when your doing Vienna it just doesnt work
TOP TEN NEW ROMANTICS


Iv never been to Vienna. Id read about it
READY STAEDY COOK. MONDAY 16.4.01


the video was just as important , I think the visual side of ultravox was as important as the music
ROUTES OF ROCK-MONDAY 4.9.00


At the time ,no one could see it as a single. It was five minutes long, it was electric, it had a violin solo in it and it was a ballad. People just couldn't see it as a hit


Once a single takes off an album often follows suit. thats when you make serious money. they are still playing vienna the whole time and the royalties mount up
DAILY EXPRESS JUNE 13TH 2001





it was petrifying absolutely petrifying coz the thing was people didnt get to see that the artists had no time for a sound check to check the sound was ok and that everything was working and all that stuff
READY STEADY COOK-MONDAY-16.4.01


just went on and you had 18minutes, what we didnt know that there was a traffic light system either side of the stage and you had 10minutes and if you saw the lights turn from green to amber you had 2 minutes left and you wouldnt see it going from amber to red because it would all go off so that kept everybody in time-yeah it was petrifying absolutely
READY STEADY COOK MONDAY-16.4.01


Luckily I was in the first hour so I could see all these artists. I didnt think I would enjoy it but it was fantastic
READY STEADY COOK MONDAY 16.4.01


we realised very early on that you couldnt just cover a x-mas song because half the money raised is the publishing so we had to write something
ROUTES OF ROCK. MONDAY-4.9.00


If you wanted a sandwich you had to get it yourself, there were no flunkeys!
ROUTES OF ROCK MONDAY-4.9.00


hairs were sticking up all over the place ( oh err!) it was like (shivers)
ROUTES OF ROCK MONDAY 4.9.00


Queen had I think rehersed this to death. They had done their 18 minutes second to second from beginning to end
ROUTES OF ROCK MONDAY 4.9.00





There was just this almighty voice coming from this little guy
ROUTES OF ROCK MONDAY 4.9.00


br>

Billies was just a regular club just off Meard street somewhere and rusty egan and Steve took it over on Tuesday night
ROUTES OF ROCK MONDAY 4.9.00


that attracted kids who wer'nt interested in doing the punk thing anymore
ROUTES OF ROCK 4.9.00


it kind of grew from here and turned into the blitz
ROUTES OF ROCK 4.9.00





It's completely bizarre, the more successful you are, the less touring you do





"that was down to inter-band politics between Glen (Matlock) and myself. I wanted to expand the music more, start bringing in synthesisers. Glen just wanted good time rock 'n' roll. Also, we were the forerunners of something that wasn't punk but which got tagged as Pow-uh-pop and was dismissed as a joke. Which the Rich Kids wasn't. We were the first band of that era to get together because we were all musicians. The idea of the band was great. It was just the personalities within it that didn't get on."


Rich Kids... only for being a target for spit!
THIS WAS TAKEN FROM THE ULTRAVOX WEBSITE






live's what its all about
JOOLS HOLLAND 25.5.01
The only light at the end of the tunnel, I mean in a sea of insipid pop, was things like David Bowie, Roxy Music.




Children do change your life. You know, they change the way you work. They change your routine. You know, the classic quotes that you hear newly pregnant couples saying is that "Well the baby will fit into our routine and you know we'll be fine." It doesn't - it turns your world upside-down. But incredible at the same time. It puts a slightly different emphasis on the work thing. I mean I'm very lucky. I've got the studio at home here so I can spend my time between the children, the family and work. You know, I'm in a very lucky position.


[on mollie]the trouble is that she has parties in london to go to now
DAILY EXPRESS JULY 5TH 2001






i didnt want to be seen taking sides after she died.
DAILY EXPRESS JULY 5TH 2001


of course i wish id mad a call to her but it probally wouldnt have made any difference. its just natural to feel that kind of regret.
DAILY EXPRESS JULY 5TH 2001


i was always two steps behind Geldof. id be waving a tenner at the barman while Bob was getting the drink
DAILY EXPRESS JULY 5TH 2001





they were petrified that Bob would tell them where to go and wander off
DAILY EXPRESS JULY 5TH 2001


They even managed to find all the members of my first band Stumble. i hadnt seen any of those guys since i was about 16. it was a bit like being at your own wake, able to hear all those people saying nice things about you
DAILY EXPRESS JULY 5TH 2001





We had an outside toilet with no light which was a terrifying experience if you needed to go in the night. the flat itself was really cramped. there was a sink on one wall and opposite that a cavity bed in the wall which was where my parents slept. then there was a tiny hallway where the cooker was. it seperated the main room from the bedroom i shared with my brother Bobby.
EXPRESS NEWSPAPER JULY 5TH 2001


(on his sister Linda) i cant remember where she can have slept, must have been with my parents
EXPRESS NEWSPAPER JULY 5TH 2001


At 16 i earned £6 a week as an apprentice engineer. my parents let me keep my first pay packet and after that i would contribute to family expences
DAILY EXPRESS JUNE 13TH 2001


br>

when we were about 13 we had this dream of appearing on top of the pops like them [Small faces]
EXPRESS NEWSPAPER JULY 5TH 2001





Public services have got to be paid for. i generate more than the average man in the street so i should pay more
DAILY EXPREE JUNE 13TH 2001





i was born with nothing and i'll go out with nothing
DAILY EXPRESS JUNE 13TH 2001


Im dreadful. i dont like opening bank statements.- i like boys toys-gadgets, computers, videos, et cetera
DAILY EXPRESS JUNE 13TH 2001


I think you worry more for the familys sake than your own
DAILY EXPRESS JUNE 13TH 2001





It was about to become the worst selling record that id ever been associated with
DAILY EXPRESS JULY 5TH 2001





After the two year break. the differences that might've been very smaII two years ago had magnified during that time, we'd grown apart. It seemed like we couldn't work with him


I don't think there was any question of replacing him. We tried bribing Mark Brzezickl of Big Country, but even then, though he's a great drummer and a great character to have around, in the back of our minds we didn't really think we needed a permanent drummer. I think the flexibility of being able to ask people like Mark to come and heip out is great, and 1 think he really enjoyed it as well. We can all operate drum machines for writing purposes, and there's a wealth of good drummers out there it'll be interesting to work with.





Although we've said it before, the main difference is that we've no barriers whatsoever, we let each song and its arrangement dictate what that song should sound like.

So a song like 'All Fall Down' wns like you'd imagine a Jacques Brel Celtic protest song to sound, it has a very strong Celtic folk feel, with acoustic guitars and instru- ments. So we used the Chieftains on it, went over to Dublin to record them. Although at the time the idea sounded really bizarre, the combination of us and them, a band who supposedly uses technology to its utmost and this band who uses no technology at all, that combination works really well." Another startling track on the album is 'All In One Day', which was given an orchestral arrangement by George Martin, who worked with them on 'Ouartet'. It's a rousing epic of a song, which could be construed as a tribute to Live Aid, which all three of the band have agreed was the definitive highlight of their career. Midge says of the track: "We asked George Martin to arrange an orchestra for it. Billy did some stuff on it but the rest of just sat back and watched the orchestra play, which was quite nice, watching someone else perform it for you."



The other tracks on it are just straightforward, down-the-line guitar orientated melodic rock songs. We wanted to get away from fan- cy sounds; simplify it. It's much more like a band, the excitement of a band playing. It's very immediate.


It's very difficult to say it's not the same formula, because what people think of as a formula, it equates to a recognisable sound. It's not the sounds that we use or the fact that we“ve used synths, it's the way we“ve actually constructed the music, and that's what's really identifiable about Ultravox. There're songs we“ve played withjust the bass drum and piano and nothing else and it sounds like Ultravox, it's because of the chord structures and melodies we use. They're still there, we're not going to change that because it's us. Those elements remain, but we“ve simplified how we actually put those elements across, by simplifying arrangements, not having them quite as intense as they have been in the past






We“ve now got ourselves off the record company in America, which is a ma- jor move. We're looking for a new label there, so what happens in the rest of the worrd really depends on how quickly we can get a deal. Even if we don't do America on this tour, I reckon we'll still be doing Australia, Japan and Canada. That takes us into next Spring. "We'll have a single out to coincide with the British tour, which is going to be 'All Fall Down'. And we're not taking The Chieftains on tour!" Midge's highly successful solo tour has definitely given Ultravox a different attitude towards the touring process.


I think we' ve all learned from that, that I could go on a tour round the world for two months and not lose an arm and a leg. I didn't have to take a massive overdraft to pay for it. "And the other thing is that in the last couple of years, technology has actually caught up with what we've been doing, so now instead of taking out three arti- culated trucks full of synths and drum machines, we don“t need them, you can now get one keyboard that replaces four keyboards, which is brilliant. 50 being able to do that on the solo tour has refiected on how we now look upon touring and working in the studio. Streamlined and simplified.


"No-one hated the amount of equipment used more than we did, it was an immense headache. Our soundchecks on the last tour used to take th ree hours, every night, it was really boring. Now our soundchecks should take half an hour, like a real band. It'll be really minimal now."



That's why Billy's got to learn to tap dance!"
For this tour, Ultravox has been extended to a seven piece. On keyboards, there's Craig Armstrong, on guitar - Max Abbey, Colin King, from the Messengers, on backing vocals, and Pat Ahern, a friend of Mark Brzezicki's on drums.

" It's good that we're not using the same old cliched session guys, "We're using people with a real spark there, who really want to do it."



"We' ve been there, and we're on our way back. The problem is when you're touring Britain, the massive stage sets look great, 'cause you know the size of the hall. and then you get to somewhere like Wiesbaden and find the height above the stage is only 20 feet, and you' ve got to cut the massive monument in half, and it just looks stupid. You just learn over the years that things have got to be adaptable."


>


I hope to get Robbie Williams doing something from Les Miserables







< It seems ages since we've seen you?
"It is ages since you've seen me. We, in the UK, have a rather overblown importance of ourselves in the world music market and if you're not seen in TV or if you don't get the profile here people think you've fallen off the end of the earth and the world's a big place.
"The weird thing is my last album had very little profile here and huge profile everywhere else so it seems like longer than five years since I had anything out. It's been fairly hectic."
What about the single Beneath a Spielberg Sky?
"It's a term that I coined with Chris (bassist in Ultravox and the duo were involved in the graphics for the band). It was in the early 80s and all the directors had one thing in common, this ominous moving mass that depicted something horrible coming and we used to try and recreate these in some of our videos but we never could on a shoestring budget. But the term was one I've carried on using. Watching life and death happened on your widescreen television. Watching the end of the world coming in a movie on your surround sound telly was the twist that I gave the song."
How have your working circumstances changed for this album?
"A lot of things changed. The record company at the time didn't want me to produce my last record myself. They wanted to shake me up a bit, not use the same musicians, not record at my studio and although I'm proud of it, the process I went through was antagonistic so when it came this album I took the bull by the horns and went off and did it the way I wanted to do it. Almost going back and doing what Ultravox would have been doing today - embracing modern technology and that's dictated what the album sounds like."
How will you fit into to today's musical climate?
"I've never fitted in. I seem to constantly be swimming upstream but that has created a few magical bits of music. 'Vienna' would never have been as successful as it was if it hadn't sounded the way it sounded and been so different from everything else that was around at the time. I have no expectations of what it's going to do. All can do it make the music and hand it across to the big machine.
"I'm finding a lot of young people are getting very tired of the packaged, contrived, unreal element of music that is being force fed to them and I'm seeing a lot of people reverting back to a time to a period when there was interesting music around so there's a huge resurgence of interest in the 80s but I don't do retro. I don't want to go back. It was a great time and some great music came out of it but I don't want to go back there to jump on a bandwagon. I'm much more interested in going forward."
What keeps you motivated?
"There's a drive and a passion that's always been there. I want to make music that will hopefully find it's level amongst people who want to hear thought-provoking music. I don't expect it to be in the charts, I don't expect another No.1 record and I certainly don't expect to be on Top Of The Pops again cos it has all changed. It's all marketing led rather than the content. I'm getting some good reactions to the record so someone out there likes it.
"I'm much more interested in creating the next bit of music rather than going back and repackaging the old. Record companies put together compilation cos they own the material and it's cheap. I've never stood still as a songwriter and musician wherever that might be."
Is this stifling new talent?
"If you sit down and think 'where are the next U2' and they're not there simply because the record industry doesn't sign artists that they will stick with and give long term commitment to. U2 had three or four albums before they started make dent. There's a lot of interesting talent that's not going to be given the chance to grow up in the public eye. They are given one album and they spend so much money making the album and videos and as a new band they'll be lucky to sell 25,000 copies and then they are dropped. So there's bands with interesting starts and maybe five years down the line they might have been the new U2.
"You do have oddities like Radiohead who managed to crack it in America in a reasonably big way but they are the exception to the rule. Then you've got bands like Travis who are good songwriters who don't pretend to be something they are not, they do their own thing."
PART 2
On being on 'This Is Your Life'...
"It's like the ultimate CV cos it covers your entire life so a lot of people watching it were unaware that I'd been involved in so many things. So the book offers start coming in. There's talk of it but I'm too busy."
On his involvement in the Steve Marriott tribute show
"When I saw the Small Faces on television it made me want to pick up a guitar."
On his career... "If you try and map out my career it looks very random and I've just reinvented myself and it's not been like that. By rights I should have disappeared (mid 70s) after my 15 minutes of fame but luckily I was given a second chance to join The Rich Kids. And half way through the Rich Kids I bought a synthesiser cos I was listening to a lot of music from Germany. I went on to created Visage and through that I joined Ultravox. When I joined Ultravox it was my ultimate, I felt I'd finally come home. The noise we made initially was fantastic."