A Flock Of Seagulls' Mike Score Talks Playing On ‘Lost 80s Live!' RetroTour

Forbes

a day ago

ANAHEIM, CA - JANUARY 26: Singer Mike Score of the band the Flock of Seagulls performs onstage ... More during KEarth's Totally 80's Show at Honda Center on January 26, 2018 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by)
More than 40 years after they first burst onto the scene with radio-friendly hits like 'I Ran (So Far Away),' 'Space Age Love Song' and 'Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)' and stylish videos, the British synthpop band A Flock of Seagulls is still performing to audiences and recording music. And although the era of big hair, pastels and Pac-Man has long gone, A Flock of Seagulls and their '80s contemporaries left an indelible imprint on pop culture with their New Wave sound and look.
'I think anything that keeps our name upfront somewhere is good,' says Mike Score, the band's founding singer. 'Suddenly, you find out that every era has some great music…And a lot of new bands, I think, are very inspired by the '80s with a bit of '90s and of what's going on now. So it's basically a case of: you just stick with it, stick by your guns, and it'll come back around for you.'
This summer, A Flock of Seagulls is back on stage again for this year's installment of Lost 80s Live!, the long–running 1980s retro tour for which the band has been a regular staple. The tour, which kicks off on July 31 in New Haven, Connecticut, also features such artists as China Crisis, Big Country, the Vapors, Josie Cotton, Belouis Some, General Public, Polecats, Peter Godwin and the Icicle Works, — all of whom will be performing their biggest and well-known hits from that decade.
'We do it every year,' Score says. 'I think we missed one — I don't know whether it was last year or two years ago. When you're gigging all the time, you just forget what you've just done. You do a gig, you move on, you're onto the next one. Suddenly, you know you've been on tour for four or five months. And you're like, 'Where did the time go?' It's very strange.'
To Score, the appeal of Lost 80s Live! is that there are no backstage egos but rather a spirit of respect and camaraderie among the different acts. 'It's great,' he says. 'The main thing there is that all the bands know each other. We're all happy to be doing it.
'The crowds are great,' he continues. 'Usually, they know all the songs from everybody. So they're all singing along. They're all having a good time. And that comes from them to the band. So you know by the time we go on, we're having a good time. It's just a good vibe all around.'
It's a guarantee at Lost 80s Live! that Score and his band will play their famous hits that defined '80s pop music. It all began in Liverpool in 1979 when Score, his drummer brother Ali Score and bassist Frank Maudsley founded the group; guitarist Paul Reynolds later joined, solidifying the classic lineup.
UNITED KINGDOM - NOVEMBER 01: Photo of Frank MAUDSLEY and Paul REYNOLDS and Ali SCORE and FLOCK OF ... More SEAGULLS and Mike SCORE; L-R: Ali Score, Mike Score, Frank Maudsley, Paul Reynolds - posed, group shot, studio (Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns)
'In the old days with the original guys, it was just fun,' Score recalls. 'It was so weird that we rehearsed probably for a year every night for like six or seven hours and wrote a bunch of songs. Somebody heard them. We did a gig. And, I think, like a month after that, we got this huge deal with Zomba Records.'
Released in 1982, A Flock of Seagulls' self-titled debut album became a huge success, featuring such songs as 'I Ran (So Far Away),' 'Space Age Love Song,' 'Telecomunication,' 'Messages' and the Grammy-winning 'D.N.A.' The band's music was a perfect amalgam of futuristic electronic pop and guitar-charged rock.
'When you've got an album like that, you've got to realize that it took a year to write,' says Score of A Flock of Seagulls. 'We rehearsed five or six nights a week. And every night, I would say we would write two new songs. So you're talking maybe 100-150 ideas that came down to maybe 10 or 12 ideas, and that became the first album,' he says.
Of the classic lineup, Score says: 'The chemistry was there. We had a ball when we were rehearsing. We always had a great time. And we knew that we were writing some good stuff. But even so, we thought, 'We're going to get a deal here. We're going to get a single out or something.' We didn't expect the five-year deal from Zomba. That came as a big surprise.'
'I Ran' was the runaway hit that introduced the U.S. to A Flock of Seagulls ('When we played it to people, they were like, 'That song is amazing. It's got synths. It's got guitars. It's got rhythm. It's got a story. It's got everything,'' Score remembers). The song's accompanying video gave further exposure to the group, who became recognized for their look, particularly Score's distinctive and unforgettable hairstyle.
'It's indescribable, really,' he says of making it in the States. 'I remember we arrived in New York to do a couple of club shows. 'Telecommunication' was pretty big on the dance charts by then. And 'I Ran' was just starting to scratch around the Top 100. We got off the plane and we got into a limo. As we went to New York, 'I Ran' came on [the radio]. We were stunned. It's like, 'How do they know this song here in New York?' We all just looked at each other and it was smiles from ear to ear, and 'Wow, we're in America.''
During that period, A Flock of Seagulls not only became MTV staples but also toured with the Go-Go's and the Police and headlined themselves. 'We were going up and up and up,' Score says. 'It was literally a case of 'Do not look down. It's too far. If we can't stay this high, it's going to be a hell of a fall.' We just closed our eyes and kept going.'
For A Flock of Seagulls, writing and recording the second album, 1983's Listen, was a bit of a challenge, although it yielded another hit in 'Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You).' 'We had no time to write it at all,' Score recalls. 'So that's where you fall into the trap of second-album problems. We did the second album straight on tour. I think we recorded it in three or four weeks but straight back out on tour because the first album was still doing well. The second album was riding on the back of it.'
The group's third album, 1984's The Story of a Young Heart, produced another hit single in "The More You Live, the More You Love." Its reflective and moody tone departed from the first two band albums, as indicated on the poignant 'Remember David,' which was inspired by the death of Score's best friend from school.
'I wrote that whole album about him. I went into rehearsal every day, and I wrote a new song for 12 days or something like that. Steve Lovell, who was going to be our producer, was with me and he'd make his production notes. Then we brought the band in to work on it. The whole thing is about that except 'The More You Live.' I had a relationship that broke up. And my mom said to me, 'Don't worry, lad. The more you live, the more you love.' So that became the inspiration for that song.'
By the end of the 1980s, the departures of Ali Score, Frank Maudsley and Paul Reynolds left Mike Score as the only member from the popular lineup. 'We'd lived in each other's pockets for a couple of years, and things happen,' he says. 'You're all in the same hotel room. You're all traveling together. You're playing together. You're getting drunk together. Your wildness comes out on tour and you're having a great time, and you end up getting on each other's nerves. And after three years, we split.'
During this period, Score moved to the U.S., where he has since lived for many years. 'The girl I was going out with at the time just said, 'Come over here and hang out for a bit.' So that's what I did. My brother married an American girl, so he moved. I think Frank stayed in England. He was back and forth for a bit. But now I live between England and America. I love going back to England. Because I've been here so long. I'm an American citizen now. So to me, America is home and England is a second home.'
Although there were many personnel changes in the group with Score being the constant, the classic lineup reunited for the albums Ascension (2018) and String Theory (2021). 'I wouldn't say we're best friends now, but we are friends again,' Score says. 'We got together and did a few things, the orchestral stuff. That was good fun, but I don't know if we could all live together again and do stuff on the road.'
In addition to touring, Score released new A Flock of Seagulls music in 2024 as the Some Dreams album. "I never stopped writing songs,' he says. "In fact, I was trying to write a song before, and I was just like, 'You've lost it, man.' But I'll give it another go this afternoon and I just sit down at the computer with a guitar or something and start playing. And if the song comes out, great. If it doesn't, there's always tomorrow. We didn't stop in the '80s. And there are new songs that they may go for. Who knows?'
'Some of the songs, even on the new album, I experimented a bit,' he says. 'But I also have to reach back to where my inspirations came from. I look back at our first album, and sometimes I go, "Oh, this one sounds like it could have been on the first album.' Then I write it that way. Then other songs, I go, 'Well, this one's not particularly Seagulls, but it's got a Seagulls core.' And then I try and push that into a more experimental area.'
The durability of A Flock of Seagulls' music lives on through the Lost 80s Live! tour. which is not only an opportunity for fans of the band and members of Generation X to relive the music of their youth, but also for younger people to experience the 1980s.
'A lot of people bring their kids to that,' Score says. 'And of course, they're showing the kids the music they liked. To us, that is great because it helps it carry on to another generation. We've been going, I don't know, 42 years or something silly like that now. Personally, I like it when a little kid comes along and he's got my old hairdo. He's a baby Seagull, you know what I mean.'