W L
We just hung out together ; he used to come to the ‘ Blitz Club ’, he was one of the few rock stars that were ever allowed into the ‘ Blitz ’! I had just joined Ultravox and was putting the finishing touches to the first ‘ Visage ’ album and I got a phone call from Phillip saying ,” We ’ re in Arkansas in America , and we are special guests to Journey , Gary Moore is out of the band , and we can ' t carry on as a three piece , can you fly out tomorrow to help us out ?” I ' m not that kind of guitar player you know ! I play guitar but I ' m not one of those whizz kid guys . I found myself on Concorde the next day flying out to America to get a connective flight to New Orleans . Within 24 hours I was on stage playing the ‘ Boys are Back in Town ’ in front of 30,000 people ! It was glorious , it was great fun ! I knew exactly what I was doing , and I knew that this was a busman ' s holiday as my heart was with Ultravox although we had nothing going on we were writing some great music . We were just about to make our first album ‘ Vienna ’, so I knew I was going back from this bizarre lifestyle to Ultravox , it was a fantastic thing for me to do . This was 1979 , the hay day of American rock music and to be out there touring in limo ’ s and flying from gig to gig , seeing this outrage was just wonderful .
Weren ’ t you also asked to join The Sex Pistols at one point ? I was but I don ' t think they were called the Sex Pistols at that time . I was stopped in the streets of Glasgow by an English guy who turned out to be Bernie Rhodes who went on to manage ‘ The Clash ’. That was quite an unusual occurrence , an English guy stopping me and saying , “ Can you speak to my friends around the corner about music ”, the guy sitting around the corner in this beat up old car was Malcom McLaren who told me all about his shop in London and that he used to look after the ‘ New York Dolls ’. We talked for about twenty minutes , and he then said , “ do you want to join ” and I said no you haven ' t even asked me what I do , you don ’ t know if I ' m a singer a drummer or even a musician , you just happen to see me walking out of a music shop . So , I said thanks but no thanks . Turns out the band he was putting together was the ‘ Pistols ’!
In 1984 , you and Bob Geldof produced one of the biggest selling singles of all time , “ Do They Know It ’ s Christmas ”. It must be totally weird to sometimes realise , “ I made the second biggestselling British single of all time ”. Yeah , it ’ s like someone else did it . It ’ s history now so to try and remember what it was like without embellishing it all , the rudimentary elements of what went together , putting the song together , it sounds like I ' m talking about someone else , it sounds like I ' m describing someone else ' s experiences . When we were doing it , the big ambition was to get a number one record over Christmas , because a number one at Christmas can sell twice as many as any other number one at any time of year , that was it . We thought we could raise a hundred thousand pounds , nobody saw it snowballing into this beast , this monster , Band Aid , Live Aid , Live 8 , all of that stuff . It ' s still going on today you know , 38 years later . Realistically we thought it would be a six-month project . You can ' t do something like that and generate income without overseeing what happens to that income . The sad thing is at the time we couldn ’ t see beyond the Christmas of ‘ 84 , that was the time that we wanted it to get to number one , we didn ’ t realise that by writing a Christmas song it might get played every year which means that the record generates income . Bob and I gave the song writing royalties to the Band Aid Trust forever , so that song will carry on getting played in various formats and various interpretations of it , lyrical changes , melody changes , artist changes and all that stuff generates money for the cause . So , we are still there doing it and I think the big question in the next few years will be who is going to take it over , who do we leave this legacy to , who do we pass this on to because we are not going to be around forever .
Thinking of your heroes in the music world , is there anyone you have yet to meet or anyone that you would love to tour with ? There is lots of people , probably those who are no longer with us . I have worked with all three Beatles except from John Lennon , John should have been at Live Aid . He was one of the instigators of the whole ‘ All You Need Is Love ’, the John & Yoko stuff , he was the one that was missing for obvious reasons . I have been fortunate enough that I have worked with my heroes and the great thing is they ' re really nice people , you know ? Feet firmly stuck in the ground , they were all fans of someone else and that ' s why they got into in the first place . None of it ' s been a disappointment , I ' m sure if I sat down and thought there are people I could really collaborate with now , I could come up with some names . Collaborations aren ' t something that two records labels do , some do in order to sell a lot of records , not because it was organic . Everything I have done you know working with Kate Bush and sitting playing guitar with Eric Clapton or any of those things happened absolutely organically . They can only happen if there ' s a mutual respect as well . You can ' t do a collaboration with someone you have no respect for , it ’ s just wrong .
In 2005 you received an honour from the Queen for your dedication to charity work , how special was that day for you and the family ? Any kind of recognition for anything you ’ ve done in life is great , but that goes for any of us . It ' s no different to getting a gold star in school or getting a pat on the back for doing well , it ’ s a glorified version of that ; ‘ didn ’ t you do well , thank you very much , there you go !’ It didn ’ t make any difference to me , it ’ s not like you get a nice table in a restaurant before anyone else , or you get upgrades on planes , it doesn ’ t actually do anything for you ! I think my parents were ecstatic , you know , here ’ s me leaving school at 15 , leaving my apprenticeship as an engineer at 18 to join this bunch of vagabonds in this very flaky industry of ours . It could have easily gone the other way and I have been close to it going the other way on many occasions , falling between the cracks in the floor never to be seen again . I ' ve been stupidly fortunate so for them that was a real badge of honour .
And just how is life treating you at this moment in time ? Life is good . I think the positivity still manages to eek through the miserable stuff that we all seem to be going through right now . Music is very much like that ; music enhances what people feel , if you feel miserable and put on the right piece of music it can make you feel even more miserable or if you ' re feeling happy and put on some happy dance music it can make you feel even better so you can ride through just about anything with music , it ’ s the medicine we all need . The fact we can go back out there you know , me performing and the audience participating and enjoying it is the best feeling ever . That little taste of what life might be like without live music and without that feeling you get in a crowd of people , whether that be the theatre or the cinema or the dance hall , watching a performance , we all missed that , we all need that , there ' s something about the human spirit that needs to share it with other people . There ' s a power that a bunch of people have in a room all singing together and all enjoying the same thing and to have that taken away was devastating , but to have it back again is a real bright spot on the horizon .
On a daily basis we are still going through awful times with what ' s happening in the world and the UK , so we all need a little spark , a little ray of sunshine , something to look forward to . The reason why they put holiday adverts on directly after Christmas on television is we all need to look forward to something that is happening down the line .
Do you have any guilty pleasures ? I think I ' m not very good at binge watching things , I think my guilty pleasures , for somebody who works all the time , is sometimes just doing nothing and it ' s something I have only just realised in the last few years that it ’ s ok to sit down and read a book , its ok to sit down and watch a movie and not feel guilty that you ' re not in the studio working or you ' re not standing on stage performing or you ' re not fixing your house or cutting the grass . Sometimes we have earned that bit of time that you just need to yourself , so having a door to close to behind you to keep the outside world outside , and just do nothing is really important .
20 wirrallife . com