In a phone conversation that lasted just over an hour, EY's Nic Toupee spoke to Heaven 17 legend Glenn Gregory.
The iconic analogue front man took time out from studio duties where he was working on backing tracks for the 'Penthouse & Pavement' tour and new Heaven 17 songs.
Read on to find out how the acclaimed Heaven 17 documentary ended up on BBC-2, how Philip Oakey and Martyn Ware were brought together on camera to talk about the demise of League MK1 for the very first time since 1980....plus working with La Roux for 6 Music.
EY: How do you feel about the fact that the BBC was interested in the documentary - how do you feel about that endorsement of your impact?
GG: It's amazing to get it onto BBC 2 and amazing that people were interested in us enough, and trusted us enough, to make that film, because at no point did anyone come into the edit suite and take a look at what we'd done until we'd finished.
Basically they said 'yes we agree to give them two hours of BBC airtime, an hour for the concert and an hour documentary', and that's as much influence as they had, just the timing. 59 minutes, 49 seconds and we did it.
We just gave it to them when we'd finished, and we literally finished it on the Friday night and gave it to them on Sunday or Monday. So that was it.
We'd just finished and said 'thank you there you go'. The trust that was there was amazing, I couldn't believe they were letting us do it.
We could have put any old rubbish out! But of course we didn't. We gave them something that was gorgeous.
 There's a piece in The Guardian where they were talking about the 80s season and basically pulled that out as a shining example of what was good about it so far which is amazing.
Because it WAS good, it was genuine, it was honest and told an interesting story without any kind of bravado.
I was just very honest and true...and funny I think, which is good.
I love the fact that it's electronic music. I also like the fact that probably a great big chunk of the BBC-2 watching public didn't know who we were or what it was about but I think it was interesting enough to win them over anyway.
It was very watchable.
EY: It sounds like the documentary contained a revelation in putting together some of the pieces of the past?
GG: It was nice getting Phil and Martyn to actually talk about the split, because obviously it was quite acrimonious and Martyn was upset.
Martyn and Phillip were friends for such a long time. Since they were twelve years old or something, so it's really nice that they've come back together and had a chat.
I'm lobbying hard as a Human League fan to try to get Martyn, Phil and Ian to perform those first two albums live.
I'd love that. I'd pay large amounts of money to see that. At the moment I'm not getting anywhere but every time I see Phil I mention it and say 'look, come on, let's do it'.
What we could do is have a whole weekend where we could play 'Travelogue' and the first album one day and then could play 'Dare' and we'll play 'Penthouse and Pavement' the second day. Just do the whole potted history.
So far, we have no takers but I'll keep trying.
EY: Was the documentary the first time Martyn and Phil had talked about the split since it happened?
GG: That was the first time they'd talked about it actually...honestly, definitely. I kept saying to Martyn 'let's phone Phil, and let's see if we can get Phil to come on the documentary' and he said 'Phil won't want to do it, it's not fair to ask him about us' and I said 'but you know he IS us, and we are him'.
It just happened that we were doing a gig in Sheffield on the Friday night for a DJ that had died (it was a charity memorial gig). I said 'email Phil that we're doing this and see if we can get him along' so we did, and we literally just took a little DV cam in our dressing room and he came in and sat down.
I knew that Marytn thought that Bob Last had engineered the whole thing, so I just said 'let's ask Phil what he thinks'.
So we asked Phil, and Phil talked about it and prevaricated about it a bit and eventually he said 'well actually, I think it's probably Bob Last' at which point I said 'well, hang on a minute, Martyn, you get on camera as well'.
He sat down, I approached the camera and said 'OK talk about it now', and that was it.
So the first time we've ever talked about it was that time on camera.
EY: How did that feel?
GG: It was great! (laughs), it was quite cathartic. I love the fact that they both say at the end of it 'I still quite like him though'.
It's like, you two are just ridiculous. You've spent the last thirty years wondering about this, and you've just decided who it was.
Of course, after that I phoned James (the director) and said 'look, we've got Phil on camera and he's been candid. Phil and Martyn have talked about it for the first time. What we should now do is try to get Bob Last to talk about it.'
So James called Bob Last and he agreed to come down, not knowing specifically that he'd be going to talk about that, but just told we were making the programme.
So we got him there and James managed to eventually get Bob to confess. It was very funny, but now probably for the first time in a long time everybody can be completely open and happy with each other again.
EY: Had Martyn and Phil seen each other at all since the split 30 years ago?
 GG: No they'd really lost those 30 years. They didn't spend any time together. It's a shame, a crazy shame.
They were really good mates, and then they weren't.
They were in a band together and they toured together and they fought together and they are two very like minded people.
Sometimes when you've got two strong willed friends, you go further than you would if they were your enemy because you feel you know them so well.
I think it had gone too far and they couldn't work together. We've seen each other in the past but they could have been doing better things than not talking to each other.
It was good and very nice to see them together that day.
EY: In some ways the documentary did more than you expected from it then?
GG: Absolutely. It definitely did more than we expected. Iinitially, we just decided to make it for ourselves to diarise the process of rebuilding 'Penthouse and Pavement' from the point where we were going to play it live.
As we started filming, things started to evolve and we realised that there was quite a nice story here, quite a personal story, and it would be interesting so we could perhaps maybe get it on the TV.
.
We were going to make it for Sky Arts, and then BBC2 coincidentally were doing the 80s season and contacted us because they'd heard about it and said 'we really want for your film to be on'.
At first we said we couldn't do it because we would just have two weeks to edit it. James was in LA at the time, and I said 'I don't think we can do it in two weeks, we haven't even started looking at the footage', but then you kind of push yourself.
That means, ok...you have to get two edit suites, you have to get someone to do the concert and someone else to edit the documentary.
So we worked day and night on it, to be honest, and it was a labour of love. We were there day and night and then we did the extra day's filming where we got people coming to talk and then we had to get Bob. Suddenly just out this mist, this forest of information and film footage, the lines started to appear and a path came through and that was where we were going.
I think it worked out really nicely.
EY: And how did you feel about the Midge Ure segment at the end?
 GG: That was joyous wasn't it? What happened was I phoned Midge when I was trying to get everyone together to come and talk, and I said 'Midge can you come and talk on Wednesday?' and he said 'I can't, I'm in Germany gigging'.
So I said 'OK, have you got a camera, can you film yourself, just say something like Penthouse and Pavement is the best album in the world', just joking around.
So he uploaded what he filmed and I downloaded it and watched it and I just thought it was fantastic, it was hilarious!
So I sent it into the studio and showed the guys and everyone just loved it, so we decided not to put it in the show but just to have exactly what he said, more or less, at the end.
The only bit we cut out was when he said 'that much talent, THAT much talent' he turns around and he goes 'wankers!' (Glenn laughs).
The BBC wanted us to cut that last bit. I love it...it's my favourite bit, it's hilarious.
EY: How did pairing up with La Roux come about?
GG: I heard on the radio, I think it was the Steve Lamacq show. Elly had been talking about a Heaven 17 album and talking about 'And That's No Lie' being one of her favourite tracks.
I think she actually played ' And That's No Lie' on the Steve Lamacq show.
I liked her music anyway before that. I'd been listening to it a bit, so I went and found her on Myspace and I left a message saying 'thanks for playing the Heaven 17 track on Steve Lamacq, it was really nice of you to say those nice things, love Glenn'.
She got back about or four days later saying 'Oh my god I can't believe you contacted me, it's amazing oooh'.
So I guess somebody else from BBC 6 must have have realised that there might be a collaboration there, and they had just started doing one collaboration show with Little Boots and Gary Numan previously and they thought be a good idea to put us together.
So after a few false starts where we couldn't do it because Elly was in America touring, and too tired because she did so much touring she couldn't do anything else. Eventually we got together and worked on the programme at the Maida Vale studios of the BBC.
It was really good, honestly, genuinely, because it was a real collaboration.
We vaguely knew what songs we were going to do live and showed Elly 'Temptation' or 'Penthouse and Pavement' or whatever, but we weren't sure.
I'd learned a couple of La Roux songs, just because we weren't sure what we were going to do, so when we got into the studio there was a real genuine process. We spent a day's rehearsal and a half day rehearsal and then we filmed in the evening, so it really was a question of working out who was going to do what, playing, and we got on so well.
Ben Langmaid who writes with Elly and is in the band although you don't see him very often, was there and we were working all the parts out together.
It just went very, very well.
I think Elly is quite hypnotic actually, she's a real kind of charismatic person and performer. We were in rehearsals, we were laughing and we were having a nice time and it was good, and suddenly when the cameras were on and when we were doing it for real, it was like she had been plugged in.
We got on very well, then I did a song at the Bridge Aftershow party with Elly on stage and that was great. I'd love to work with them again and it would be great to work more with them in the future.
There's talk of maybe releasing the 'Temptation' thing as a War Child charity record, and that still may happen but we haven't got around to it yet, mainly because Elly is spending so much time touring away in America.
We were filming for the Heaven 17 documentary and Elly and Ben came up where we were filming in my neck of the woods in Primrose Hill. My little boy - who is seven years old is an enormous La Roux fan.
We'd just finished filming and I said 'I have to pick my little boy up from school but who wants to come with me?'
Elly was all dressed up and had her hat on and her hair up and we went to pick him up. He came out and I stood there in the school yard with Elly from La Roux and he couldn't speak, he was absolutely speechless. I said 'say hello' and he said 'hello Elly' (Glenn puts on a high quavering voice). It was so sweet.
That was really cute and it was really nice of her. I'm sure we will work together actually.
EY: How did you choose Temptation for the collaboration? The female part on that is pretty challenging!
GG: It is challenging, I know!
It's a good duet part, so it would have been the natural choice but then you have to say, OK, it IS a challenging part, will Elly be comfortable doing it and she was absolutely game.
I think Ben really wanted to do 'Temptation', I don't think it was Elly's first choice, but he said just try it and Elly went for it. I honestly think she did a really good job, considering she'd done about three rehearsals, and then that was a live show.
Elly really turned it on and I think she nailed it completely for me.
EY: Her voice is so different from the original...
GG: Exactly but that's what's nice. She made it hers, it was definitely Elly Jackson of La Roux. Elly was singing the female part from 'Temptation', and she made it work and she made it her own which is of the hardest things to do - and she did it.
EY: How do you feel about the current synthpop revival in the last couple of years?
GG: I think progressively it gets more difficult to be original, because there are only a certain amount of notes and there are only a certain amount of melodies, and they've pretty much all been used.
I think, for instance when we started and synthesisers were brand new, and they'd just come out. They were monophonic and they were rubbish, but they were making some fantastic noises.
That was brand new because no one had done it before, there hasn't been a synthesiser before so that's why that was new.
But for people who are doing it now, it has to in some way sound slightly retrospective because of what it is. Having said that, I'm really pleased that it did, because I've always loved synthesiser music. I've always loved electronics and I've always loved mixing that kind of music as well with other styles.
So sometimes you hear things and think that just sounds like...whoever, but then you think it's hard to be original using the same palette that somebody else has already used.
EY: Do you feel it's easier for artists who were there at the start to write original work than people who have just started?
GG: That's a good question.
I think it's harder for us because you know how you did it before and you want to try to do it a different way to make it more interesting for you, but then in the end I always come back and think 'let's do it the way we did it, it sounds really good' (laughs).
People who are doing it these days, sometimes they sound the same and sometimes they don't know what they're doing but generally there are bands out there that have just picked up their equipment and don't listen to us or Human League or Gary Numan or Erasure or Kraftwerk or Can. they just kind of find their own way.
Hot Chip sound very deliberate and I like it. but perhaps it lacks a little bit of originality.
EY: Who have you listened to, making electronic music, that you've been impressed by their difference or innovation?
GG: Again it's difficult, once you've used those things. I don't dislike anything actually, I really like electronic music, the more obscure electronic stuff that is more like the kind of early Human League. It's quite dark, I like that.
I really like Bat for Lashes. There's a lot of stuff from Empire Of The Sun that I like, again that's using not only electronics.
We worked with a band, actually, a long time ago, a band called Ether, who in fact didn't end up doing anything. Three girls, and they were great, really pure electronic music: really very sparse. Just three monophonic synthesisers, but they had three or four songs and I thought 'God, these girls could be really really big' but in the end it just proved too hard.
It was just before the electronic new wave had arrived and they were just too early. there are no prizes for being first sometimes.
I don't know if they're still doing it though...
EY: Why do you think the 80s are big again?
 GG: It's like anything. It's cyclical...music, fashion...
To be honest this thing about the 80s started four or five years ago and first off it was pretty much just fashion based and it was about clothes, shoulder pads and rah rah skirts, and then more music started coming through and once that started happening it becomes a more serious movement.
Because the time has been before, you start looking back at the music made at that time. My boy, who is seven, he listens to things , and Martyn has two kids I think, 12 and 14, and they listen to music with no concept of when it was made.
These days I don't get a song out of my record collection with a dog-eared cover that looks like it's from 1983, and say 'do you remember, look at this' and put on a scratchy record. I just go onto the computer and say 'listen to this, look this is Hot Chip, this is Roxy Music, this is the Cure' and they're all just mixed and it doesn't matter.
I think the younger generation listen to music in a different way than when we...certainly than I used to.
I think it's a good thing. I think it's pretty much timeless. It doesn't matter who made it or if it was made then or made now.
EY: Do you think that's beneficial for you as an artist?
GG: It's definitely a more superficial relationship until you find something you love and you hook into. When I was listening to Roxy Music or David Bowie and Marc Bolan, and the Jacksons and P-Funk Allstars. It was very eclectic then too, until you start thinking 'I really like this, this is what I want to hear'.
It is always superficial until that hook from one band really gets into you. In that way, I don't think it has changed particularly.
Is it good for us? Yeah it's good for us! Because people are listening to us again, whether it's the same people or whether it's new people.
Actually it's both, but I don't think that matters. It's just nice to get out there doing it again.
EY: What do you see as the future of Heaven 17?
 GG: I suppose really what Martyn wants to do is to work out if we can do 'The Luxury Gap' live. It's a much bigger challenge because there were a lot of instruments.
There's an orchestra on there, there's a lot of brass on there, and so you know that is a challenge. He's very gung-ho and sees no problems, whereas I look at it and think; 'Jesus Christ! There's a lot of work!'
This album was just a purely electronic album, with bass and guitar, and quite a simple album, whereas 'The Luxury Gap' is much more complicated than this one.
This tour took almost a year to get together. But I think we'll take a look at that, and also we'll take a view on doing other things whether it be with other people, collaborating, or just purely a Heaven 17 thing.
EY: Do you have anything you'd like to say to Heaven 17 fans on the Electronically Yours site?
GG: I'd like to say that they're the nicest bunch of fans that anyone could wish to have. Everyone that we ever come across is always so absolutely positive and nice to us and it's just a joy.
We try, as much as we can, to do things for people who are still interested in Heaven 17, because they really seem to care a lot.
I'd say thank you so much for sticking with us and let's hope we've got a lot more to give you.
(With huge thanks to Glenn Gregory & Nic Toupee)
Related links:
Official Heaven 17 website
Heaven 17 @ myspace
Heaven 17 will be performing Penthouse and Pavement live across the UK in November 2010. Tickets are available through www.seetickets.com .
Edinburgh HMV Picture House (Nov 22), Glasgow O2 ABC (Nov 23), Manchester Ritz (Nov 25), Birmingham HMV Institute (Nov 26), London HMV Forum (Nov 28), Oxford O2 Academy (Nov 29), Brighton Corn Exchange (Nov 30), Bristol O2 Academy (Dec 1)
Ticket Hotline - 08700 603 777
With Thanks to Glenn and Peter Noble
|
