Midge Ure interview

Midge Ure and his Band Electronica return to the Philharmonic Hall in May to celebrate 40 years since the release of Ultravox’s Rage In Eden and Quartet albums.

We caught up with the Scottish singer ahead of the tour to discuss the making of the two records which followed Vienna, his memories of playing Liverpool and whether Live Aid could be done today.

Words | Lawrence Saunders

You’ve played Liverpool on a number of occasions in the past, both as a solo artist and with Ultravox. Only your second-ever gig with the band took place in November 1979 at Eric’s on Mathew Street. Do you remember that show?

Yes, I do, of course! It was in the days when you didn’t really buy advance tickets, you just paid on the door, and I remember being in the hotel and the word got back to us that there was a line of people waiting outside to get in. That was amazing for me because when you join a band which is already established, especially as the new frontman, you kind of doubt whether anyone’s going to want to come and see it, and give you a chance.

So when the message came through that there was a queue of people outside I knew it was going to be a good show. I remember the sensation of those very early shows and those early days, way before we had recorded the Vienna album and we were trying out new songs we’d written.

Do you look forward to playing Liverpool and do you feel people are right to liken the city and its people to your hometown of Glasgow?

I love coming to Liverpool. I’ve spent a lot of time of my life up there, either performing or meeting people. In fact, the coat and guitar which I used at Live Aid, as well as the Burberry raincoat I wore in the video for ‘Vienna’, were on display at the British Music Experience last year. My association with Liverpool is loud and proud.

Whoever likened the people of Liverpool with Glasgow was right to do so. The people have the same character – they’re witty and the salt of the earth. I always look forward to coming to Liverpool.

One of the Ultravox albums which you are celebrating on this tour is Quartet, which was produced by someone who has a very deep connection to Liverpool’s music scene. How did you find working with George Martin? Warren Cann (Ultravox drummer) has said that during the recording, he often sat there thinking how amazing it was that you were working with the producer of Sgt. Pepper’s.

And Sgt. Pepper’s engineer, Geoff Emerick! We had the dream team! Warren’s quite right, they are ‘pinch me’ moments. There are moments in any musician’s career where you think, why am I here? Why am I standing on the stage with these people who I respect and admire and have done from afar? It’s like a schoolboy dream realised.

George [Martin] was everything that I hoped he would be – a lovely, lovely man; nothing was too much trouble for him. He had a wealth of information and he kept up with the latest technology. That was one fear that we had, that he wouldn’t understand what we were doing but he knew all about synthesisers and drum machines. And he told the best stories in the world.

There was a moment when I was singing, I think it was the intro to ‘Hymn’, and George said on the intercom: ‘It doesn’t sound very good. It’s not you, it’s the microphone’. He turned to Geoff and said: ‘Have we got John’s mic here?’. So they brought in John’s Neumann and set it up. I was standing there singing ‘Hymn’ into John Lennon’s microphone – serious ‘pinch me’ stuff.

Does performing songs from Rage In Eden and Quartet bring back good memories of that time with Ultravox in the early 1980s? They were of course the two records released after your biggest-selling studio album, Vienna.

When the ‘Vienna’ single came out in 1981, it changed everything. It was an unexpected hit which didn’t fit the format and it gave us the wherewithal to go and do the Rage In Eden album. Rage in Eden was the follow-up to Vienna, so you can imagine the amount of pressure we were under from labels and executives. Everywhere we went on tour, someone would suggest that their capital city would be a great title for the next album… no!

We did the antithesis of what we’ve done with Vienna, whereby we had written the songs, performed them live and then went into the studio and recorded them. With Rage in Eden, we went to Germany, to Conny Plank’s studio in the middle of nowhere, for three months. We went with no songs and created the entire album there. That process was in itself an incredibly stupid, or incredibly exciting, thing to do! It turned out to be not so stupid as it did everything we wanted it to do. So I’ve got no bad memories from that time. And if I have any, they melt into insignificance next to the good stuff that was going on.

Are there any songs from Rage In Eden & Quartet which you’ve had to reacquaint yourself with ahead of the tour?

It’s like anything. If you look at an essay you wrote at school when you were 13, which you thought was brilliant at the time, when you look at it now with a bit of life under your belt, you might not be so sure. It’s the same going back listening to my music. Some of it didn’t resonate with me at all. I couldn’t get in the same headspace to understand what it was that we were doing at the time. It felt a bit stilted and didn’t make the translation to performing live now.

But equally so, a lot of songs which I’d kind of forgotten about, and just thought of as an album track, have really come to the fore. I’ve just cherry-picked the songs I want to do [on the tour]. I could play the entire album but if I don’t play it with heart and feeling, and I don’t get that kick which I’m supposed to get from doing it, the audience will feel that. Audiences aren’t stupid – they can tell when you’re just going through the thing painting by numbers.

Are there any tracks which you are particularly looking forward to playing that you haven’t done live for a long time?

The two which are jumping to the fore right now are both haunting, miserable ones! We’ve got ‘Your Name (Has Slipped My Mind Again)’ and the title track from Rage in Eden. Both are very textual and ambient. The tracks were both created in the studio but they really come to life when we play them live.

You mentioned Live Aid earlier and 2025 will mark 40 years since the multi-venue benefit concert. Do you think it would be possible to put on an event of such a scale again? Could it have close to the same impact as it did in 1985?

Isn’t it the same reason that The Beatles never got back together again? Sometimes we look back at history and see things through rose-tinted glasses. But who knows [what it would be like]? We can’t compare something someone might do today with what we did back then. I mean, it was magnificent what happened. It was an event which resonated around the planet, which is exactly what it was meant to do.

I think you’d find that artists would still be up for doing it and there are many, many causes which need help. The world is in a right mess right now. But whether music is the answer [I don’t know]. Music was all-powerful back then. We didn’t have smartphones, 24-hour television and everything on demand like we do now. It’s a different world. As much as we’d like to think that something like [Live Aid] could happen again and would make a difference in people’s lives, I don’t know if it’s the vehicle now. It’s very hard to say.

Midge Ure and Band Electronica play the Philharmonic Hall on Monday 15 May

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