Does anyone still call you Jim? ('Midge' was a nickname achieved by saying 'Jim' backwards.)

MU: My mother! And my brother and sister, but that's about it. I suppose when I go back to Glasgow and I bump into old school friends or whatever, they still call me Jim.

Do you get back to Scotland often?

MU: I do. I play up there a lot . . . and I go back about three or four times a year.

What's your favourite place in Scotland?

MU: I'm going to have to say Mull. You've got everything from sheer cliffs to beautiful white sand beaches. We got married up there a few years ago and we take the kids up every so often. The last time we went up we had five glorious days of stunning sunshine. The kids love it and the fact that it's so under-populated is great. Actually we're due another trip up there soon . . .

Click here to hear Midge Ure singing a couple of tracks including the classic 'No Regrets'.

You started gigging around Glasgow in the early/mid 1970's. It was a very different place back then to what it is now . . .

MU: Yeah. I think it was still quite a volatile place then. There was kind of a leftover from the whole gang thing, but we never really got involved in any of that because, being in a band, you provided the musical backdrop for other people's lives. We provided the soundtrack. So we were on the stage while all the fighting and kissing went on below on the dance floor.

Famously you were asked to join the Sex Pistols. Any regrets about turning them down?

MU: Not at all. What actually happened was, I was coming out of McCormack's (Glasgow musical instrument shop) one afternoon and I was stopped on the street by this English guy who turned out to be Bernie Rhodes, who worked with the Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren and who would later go on to manage The Clash. He said 'can you come and meet my mate?' So I went around the corner and sitting in this car was Malcolm McLaren. By all accounts the two of them were up in Glasgow selling some fairly hot musical equipment out of the boot of a car! So McLaren started spouting off about the New York Dolls, his clothes shop and stuff, and then he starts talking about this band he's putting together and how great it's going to be. About half an hour into the conversation he finally asked me if I was a musician! So I thought – he's got his priorities completely wrong! Of course I didn't know that he'd got his priorities 100% right: get the people who look the part and you can fill in the music bits later. But no, I was quite happy to decline the offer and go on my merry way. This was in 1975 and, of course, about nine months later I started reading all about the Sex Pistols and I thought 'Oops! That was that guy . . .'

Of course later you worked with the Sex Pistols bass player and songwriter Glen Matlock in The Rich Kids.

MU: Isn't that just bizarre, how that happened? The first weekend I came down to London to meet up with Glen and talk about joining the band was a real baptism of fire. I saw Siouxsie and the Banshees, I met The Clash, Sid Vicious was at a party we went to, we supported The Police at a gig . . . all this stuff that I'd read about in the NME (New Musical Express) I was suddenly right in the middle of. It was incredible.

From there you went onto join Ultravox, which was a bit of a departure musically to what you'd been doing. Did you have any reservations?

MU: No, not at all. There was kind of a linear thought process behind it. A personal progression. I kind of instigated the break up of The Rich Kids by buying a synthesiser, because I wanted to integrate this new electronic thing into what we were doing. Apparently there's a great clip on YouTube of us playing on a TV show in the late 70's where I'm playing this horrible synthesiser, playing all the wrong notes! But I integrated the synth into the band and it really broke the band up because half of us wanted to do this electronic stuff that we were hearing coming out of Germany and the other half – Glen and Steve – were just into playing this good time, Faces-style rock and roll. So when the band broke up Rusty Egan and I went off with the synthesiser and did some demos which became the basis for the concept of Visage. And through Visage I ended up slipping in to Ultravox, after John Foxx had left and everyone thought Ultravox were completely dead and gone. I was ecstatic to be in Ultravox. It wasn't the most lucrative business deal, but it wasn't about business. When we made a noise together, it was a fantastic noise.

Click here for the official Ultravox website.

It soon became lucrative though. You were huge!

MU: We were! We captured a moment, I think. We were pivotal in a lot of groundbreaking things: putting out a single like 'Vienna' – four minutes long, slow, electronic ballad with a viola solo in it – you had to be crazy to do that! Not an obvious hit record . . . And the fact that we made groundbreaking videos. All of a sudden videos weren't things shot in a TV studio between takes of Coronation Street. We went off and shot this mini-movie for Vienna and, of course, video changed after that. All these things that became video clichés – cropping the top and bottom off the screen, shooting on film as opposed to videotape, making it look like a movie . . . after us everyone had to have one. So we were quite a groundbreaking act for a while.

Silly question, but what was it like having that period of near-Beatlemania kind of fame?

MU: Fantastic! It was every schoolboy's dream! You're young, free and single, you're hot stuff to just about every female out there, and you're in a band with a bunch of great characters making fantastic music and travelling the world. I'd never been outside the UK before and suddenly we're touring Australia, Japan, America . . . I remember being onstage at Hammersmith Odeon and we played Vienna – which was still just an album track at that point – and the place just erupted. They went bananas. There's something quite disconcerting about standing on stage and looking out and seeing that all the guys in the audience have little pencil moustaches and raincoats. That's a little worrying! You knew you'd done something at that point. But I suppose the top of anyone's tree would be being onstage at Live Aid, the biggest concert anyone could ever do. That was a real kind of 'we've made it' moment.

Which brings us neatly onto the whole Band Aid phenomenon – is it true that Bob Geldof thought your opening riff for 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' sounded like the theme from the British television show Z Cars?

MU: Well so he says! I think Bob polishes his sound bites quite carefully! That's one he's used quite a few times. It (the riff) does have a bit of that anthemic thing that I use quite a lot. That kind of hairs-on-the-back-of-the arms thing. I think it's a very Scottish thing actually, whether it's a lament, or a kind of stirring 'let's go and fight!' thing. I use those tunes. When I sent him that riff he thought it sounded like Z Cars, but then I thought his part of the song sounded dreadful too! It sounded like Bob Dylan on a bad day! But the two ideas eventually gelled together.

The song has actually stood the test of time well . . .

MU: Because you can't get away from it! It's twenty odd years now too. The nature of it being a Christmas song means you can't escape it. It's maybe not as grating as 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday' or Slade or whatever. I don't know . . . I think because of the nature of that particular song and what it was about, it's transcended the pop song thing to become a hymn, a Christmas carol. You hear choirs singing it . . .

At the time did you think you'd still be hearing it – and talking about it – nearly a quarter of a century later?

MU: No! Not at all! We'd no idea what we had on our hands. Even on the day we had no idea who was turning up to lend their strength to it. All those artists came along and made the song transcend into a whole different plane. They put their popularity and credibility on the line and came along. The thing that's struck me in the last couple of years is the fact that they'd never heard the song when they turned up to do it. They turned up cold on the day, committed to doing it because they'd seen the graphic images of starving African children on television. It could have been the worst song in the world – and it very nearly was! – but they turned up and stuck their necks on the line and made it the huge success it was. The fact is that 20 years later you still hear it and it's not a bad wee tune! It's hopefully down to Bob and my song writing skills, my production skills and a bit of magic happening on the day.

Next you embarked on your solo career. Was that nerve wracking?

MU: Well, it's a whole different ball game when you're up there doing it on your own. The first solo album was easy because I was still in Ultravox and it was a bit of a busman's holiday for me. By the time I'd actually left the band and was doing 'official' solo records I was musically confused as to what I was trying to achieve. I was too serious. It was all too dark and too miserable. I didn't want to write three minute pop songs any more. I wanted to write something with more depth to it. It was a real weird period. It took me a while to get my feet on the ground and establish what it was I wanted to do.

Click here for gigs, photos, audio and video downloads of Midge Ure.

More recently, did you enjoy the whole Live 8 experience?

MU: I have to say, I thought the Scottish concert at Murrayfield was absolutely amazing. We – I'm talking as a Scot here – didn't have the line-up that London had, or Paris, or Berlin, but the line-up we did have was just brilliant. Having The Proclaimers walk on and sing 500 Miles was a great way to start the whole thing. You could have walked on stage and coughed into the microphone and the audience were there with you! I did Vienna with the comedian Eddie Izzard on piano – who played it very badly I have to say! He's actually quite a good piano player but he was very nervous. He'd never done it in that kind of situation before – and a friend of mine on mandolin and we just sang it acoustically in the rain and the audience were just fabulous. They were there for all the right reasons. They weren't there for just a one-off concert. They listened to the political speeches, they took in everything that was going on. It was amazing.

Click here for pictures from the G8 concerts around the world.

You're still touring today too . . .

MU: I still love it. From the end of Ultravox I've kind of done live work fairly non-stop. Over the last few years every other weekend there's a handful of shows and I go out and do them and it keeps me entertained.

Did you imagine when you started out playing music that you'd have a thirty - year career?

MU: No, not at all. I remember when I was in The Rich Kids (1978), saying to my manager, 'Oh God, I think my hair's starting to go! I don't want to be doing this when I'm 30!' But you've got a different gauge when you're 25. You think at 30 you'll be finished! Of course, looking back in the other direction . . . I'm 53 now and I'm thinking 'well, I'm still young at heart. I still want to do it. I still need to do it. I've still got this drive, the passion for making music hasn't diminished at all over the years. I think we're heading for the first generation of pensioner rock stars!

What was it like receiving your OBE? Was that a crowning moment?

MU: It was fantastic! It was a great day for the family. The idea of going to the palace, to them it was quite magical. Fairytale stuff. But maybe a bit boring after a while because you can't really hear what's going on because it's all very quiet and there's quite a distance from the audience to where it's actually happening. But they loved having their photograph taken in the courtyard. Although, personally, I have to say that there was a band playing in the gallery at one end of this massive ballroom and as I went to get my gong they were playing 'Food Glorious Food' from Oliver! Not quite as magical as I thought it might have been!

Did the Queen say anything interesting to you?

MU: Well, I didn't think she'd give me it because she'd had to cancel her tea party in Edinburgh because of Live 8! But I was looking to see if she had a little earpiece in, to see if anyone was feeding her information on who was coming up, but no, and she said to me 'I believe you've been very busy this summer?' (with Live 8) and I said 'Yes, Maam.' And she said 'It's not all going to go away now, is it?' (meaning the whole Make Poverty History campaign) and I said 'No, Maam, it's not.' And she said 'I'm very pleased to hear it.' So, she knew. I was quite taken aback by that. It was quite a personal level she talked on. It wasn't just some generic statement.

Was part of you thinking 'not bad for a guy from Glasgow?'

MU: (Laughing) Yeah. The boy done good!

And he did, you know!

Further Information:

Courtesy of Scottish Government - Scotland.org .

---

Recommend this article...