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Sydney Morning Herald
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
What happens when New Romantics grow old? Just ask Midge Ure
It was so polarising that it led to the group's demise. Undeterred, Ure and Rich Kids bandmate (and influential club DJ) Rusty Egan co-founded Visage, the New Romantic frontrunners who had a hit in 1980 with the song Fade To Grey. In the decades since, Ure has become one of music's most reliable practitioners, successfully proving there is a world in which guitars and synthesisers can co-exist, first with his post-Visage band Ultravox, and then as a solo artist. And though the days of releasing hit singles may be behind him, his catalogue is blessed with enough fan-friendly deep cuts – solo chart toppers such as If I Was and mainstream hits like Ultravox's Vienna – to sustain a healthy touring schedule. In October, it will bring Ure to Australia for the aptly named Catalogue tour, in which he will perform music from throughout his career, including tracks from the ill-fated Rich Kids. (There may also be a few Thin Lizzy songs, given Ure was drafted in by frontman Phil Lynott to replace guitarist Gary Moore on a US tour supporting Journey in 1979.) 'I wanted to avoid 'the hits' tour, so I called it 'Catalogue', but 'the hits' managed to squeeze its way onto the tour poster,' he says. 'You're expected to play a lot of those anyway. But I dug deep and started looking at songs that should have been singles in retrospect, and other key tracks for me. 'They're not all three-minute pop songs. I do things like [Ultravox's] Your Name (Has Slipped My Mind Again), which is a long, atmospheric, filmic thing.' The idea for the Catalogue tour stemmed from a similarly themed 2023 concert at London's Royal Albert Hall to mark Ure's 70th birthday. Given Ure has now joined the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Robert Plant in the ranks of septuagenarian musicians still going strong, it raises the question: is rock'n'roll no longer just a young person's game? 'It's totally changing!' says Ure. 'I'm reading a book called Hope I Get Old Before I Die [by David Hepworth], and it's all about the fact that at Live Aid, something changed. There were no youngsters on Live Aid, the youngsters were in their mid-to-late thirties. Ultravox and Spandau Ballet were the youngsters. 'McCartney was 48 when he did Live Aid, and we all thought of him as an old guy! So it all changed at that point and became more about whether you were good or not as opposed to whether you were new or not.' No matter the magnitude of Ure's achievements, the spectre of Live Aid – which this month marked its 40th anniversary – and 1984's Band Aid charity single Do They Know It's Christmas? will forever loom large. Ure co-wrote the song with Bob Geldof, who spearheaded the project to fight famine in Ethiopia. 'Bob came to mine with a song he didn't tell me at the time that he'd kind of half written and played to The Boomtown Rats, who thought it was shit,' laughs Ure. 'It wasn't a great song. It felt like we were trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. It had no chorus, there were no repeating bits, there was nothing that people could latch on to.' Ure recorded the music and arranged Do They Know It's Christmas? over a four-day session in his home studio. Geldof, meanwhile, set about enlisting some of Britain's biggest pop stars to sing on it, including Bono, Boy George, George Michael, Simon Le Bon and Sting. 'Maybe tenacity and desperation of trying to get [the song] done and out there was what drove it through in the long run,' says Ure. 'As a record it worked incredibly well, and that was due to the fact we had some of the best artists that the UK had to offer lending their name and their fan base.' Though well into his sixth decade as a performer, Ure says he will get the same buzz walking onstage at his Australian dates that he felt as a teen watching artists such as Led Zeppelin and The Carpenters at The Apollo in Glasgow. 'If you don't, you're dead,' he says. 'There's something not right. I'm still enthusiastic about it. You know why? Because it's too much like hard work if you don't feel it.'
The Age
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
What happens when New Romantics grow old? Just ask Midge Ure
It was so polarising that it led to the group's demise. Undeterred, Ure and Rich Kids bandmate (and influential club DJ) Rusty Egan co-founded Visage, the New Romantic frontrunners who had a hit in 1980 with the song Fade To Grey. In the decades since, Ure has become one of music's most reliable practitioners, successfully proving there is a world in which guitars and synthesisers can co-exist, first with his post-Visage band Ultravox, and then as a solo artist. And though the days of releasing hit singles may be behind him, his catalogue is blessed with enough fan-friendly deep cuts – solo chart toppers such as If I Was and mainstream hits like Ultravox's Vienna – to sustain a healthy touring schedule. In October, it will bring Ure to Australia for the aptly named Catalogue tour, in which he will perform music from throughout his career, including tracks from the ill-fated Rich Kids. (There may also be a few Thin Lizzy songs, given Ure was drafted in by frontman Phil Lynott to replace guitarist Gary Moore on a US tour supporting Journey in 1979.) 'I wanted to avoid 'the hits' tour, so I called it 'Catalogue', but 'the hits' managed to squeeze its way onto the tour poster,' he says. 'You're expected to play a lot of those anyway. But I dug deep and started looking at songs that should have been singles in retrospect, and other key tracks for me. 'They're not all three-minute pop songs. I do things like [Ultravox's] Your Name (Has Slipped My Mind Again), which is a long, atmospheric, filmic thing.' The idea for the Catalogue tour stemmed from a similarly themed 2023 concert at London's Royal Albert Hall to mark Ure's 70th birthday. Given Ure has now joined the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Robert Plant in the ranks of septuagenarian musicians still going strong, it raises the question: is rock'n'roll no longer just a young person's game? 'It's totally changing!' says Ure. 'I'm reading a book called Hope I Get Old Before I Die [by David Hepworth], and it's all about the fact that at Live Aid, something changed. There were no youngsters on Live Aid, the youngsters were in their mid-to-late thirties. Ultravox and Spandau Ballet were the youngsters. 'McCartney was 48 when he did Live Aid, and we all thought of him as an old guy! So it all changed at that point and became more about whether you were good or not as opposed to whether you were new or not.' No matter the magnitude of Ure's achievements, the spectre of Live Aid – which this month marked its 40th anniversary – and 1984's Band Aid charity single Do They Know It's Christmas? will forever loom large. Ure co-wrote the song with Bob Geldof, who spearheaded the project to fight famine in Ethiopia. 'Bob came to mine with a song he didn't tell me at the time that he'd kind of half written and played to The Boomtown Rats, who thought it was shit,' laughs Ure. 'It wasn't a great song. It felt like we were trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. It had no chorus, there were no repeating bits, there was nothing that people could latch on to.' Ure recorded the music and arranged Do They Know It's Christmas? over a four-day session in his home studio. Geldof, meanwhile, set about enlisting some of Britain's biggest pop stars to sing on it, including Bono, Boy George, George Michael, Simon Le Bon and Sting. 'Maybe tenacity and desperation of trying to get [the song] done and out there was what drove it through in the long run,' says Ure. 'As a record it worked incredibly well, and that was due to the fact we had some of the best artists that the UK had to offer lending their name and their fan base.' Though well into his sixth decade as a performer, Ure says he will get the same buzz walking onstage at his Australian dates that he felt as a teen watching artists such as Led Zeppelin and The Carpenters at The Apollo in Glasgow. 'If you don't, you're dead,' he says. 'There's something not right. I'm still enthusiastic about it. You know why? Because it's too much like hard work if you don't feel it.'
Glasgow Times
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
Scottish singer announced 'immersive' Glasgow concert
Ure said: 'This is my two worlds coming together. 'Almost every album I have made over the last 40-plus years has featured at least one instrumental track. Instrumental music is one of my main loves. 'I realised most of these have never been performed live. So my intention on this tour is to seamlessly insert some of these atmospheric, cinematic instrumentals between a selection of hits and favourite album tracks.' The tour promises to offer a 'rare and deeply personal concert experience' for fans by bringing together album favourites with 'cinematic instrumentals'. Speaking about the tour, Ure said he wanted to 'take the audience on a journey rather than just play a list of individual songs'. 'This will be an immersive experience for the audience both visually and sonically,' he said. READ MORE: American music legend announced exciting Glasgow gig READ MORE: Warning ahead of massive rock band's Glasgow gig in July Ure's musical career has spanned decades with his early years performing as part of bands such as Irish rockers Thin Lizzy, and new wave groups Visage and Rich Kids before going on to have a successful solo career. The Ivor Novello winner, who has also been nominated for a Grammy, became an OBE in 2005 for services to music and charity. The musician went on to celebrate his 70th birthday with a sold-out show at the Royal Albert Hall in 2023. The tour will take place in May and June 2026. On top of Glasgow, Ure will perform in places, including Edinburgh, Milton Keynes, London, Reading, and Manchester.
The Herald Scotland
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
I was a has-been at 23 says Scots singer behind one of 1980s top tunes
But it all begs the question; at 71 Ure is still young compared to Jagger and Elton and Rod. But what drives the musician to drive around California? 'Well, it's not that I have a proper job,' he says, grinning. Read more Ure did attempt a 'proper job' once upon a time, working as an engineering apprenticeship in East Kilbride. But music was too big a pull. Indeed, the teenage James Ure had 'Clapton is god' stencilled on the back of his dust jacket. 'Yet, the chances of strapping a guitar to your back and developing a career in music were extremely remote,' he recalls. 'The music industry was London or Liverpool centric. Meanwhile, my dad [a van driver] wanted something better for my older brother and I. [Than a bottom flat in a close]. He was being sensible.' Midge Ure took the less sensible route. He joined a band, Salvation, which renamed as Slik, had a No I hit with Forever and Ever, managed by songwriters Bill Martin and Phil Coulter. Ure's experience with the acerbic, egotistical Clydebank-born Martin proved to be a life lesson. Martin once delivered the put-down; 'Midge was good, but not as good as he thought he was.' Bill Martin also decreed that Slik perform his songs. And wouldn't let young Midge play on the record. 'When we talk about Bill Martin, it makes me realise that everything I've done since Slik has been a backlash to Slik,' he reveals. 'I felt I had my 15 minutes [of pop fame] and never got a chance to prove myself. And at 23, I was a has-been. So, I've constantly been trying not to be the pop star, but instead the guy who is interested in record production and new technology - which takes you into weird and wonderful places.' Midge Ure has described his life as running up a down escalator. 1977, he ran towards punk with the Rich Kids, then formed electronic outfit Visage and enjoyed success with two albums and the hit single, Fade to Grey. Yet meantime, he became the frontman with Ultravox. 'When we first went into a studio and plugged in it was the most exciting thing I'd ever done in my life. We had nothing in our pockets. We had no future. But the music we played was phenomenal.' However, the cool Ure head measured expectations. 'We went to America in 1979 to try and get a record deal and one guy interviewed us and complimented us on how well we spoke English. Looking back, I think he thought we were Kraftwerk. What chance had we got?' Read more Pop chart success didn't matter, yet the anthemic single Vienna did chart, reaching No 2. Was the cool head turned a little? 'Oh god, yeah, it's a heady drug fame, isn't it? At one point you are 'Wee Jim,' and then you're 'Midge.' And suddenly you find yourself attractive to the opposite sex. But equally so, you become the target of someone's next punch because his girlfriend fancied you.' Midge Ure's life altered dramatically. Married to model Annabel Giles with a daughter, the family lived in a eight-bedroom house in Chiswick, the garage full of beautiful cars. He bought a house in Montserrat. And a volcano destroyed it. It was a metaphor for how life can blow up in your face. After Ultravox moved away from each other, Ure carved out a solo career but found himself being hounded by the tax man for half a million. Then his marriage broke apart and he found himself with two homes to support.' But one of the cleverest things he had done when the money was coming in was to build a studio in his back garden. 'It was a massive investment, and everyone thought I was crazy, but I knew that record companies drop the moment your last record fails. So, this meant I could keep going.' Ure developed as a solo artist, with hits such as If I Was. And although he loved being in a band, he was at times reluctant to share his visions. He grins. 'It's a real madness. You end up working four times harder to create something. I once spent 12 years making a new record. It's absolutely crazy.' The musician however was more than happy to the Princes Trust Rock Gala band, playing with the likes of Elton and Eric, the guitar god whose name he had on his back.' But hang on; Midge Ure has always been the band leader. How did that dynamic work out? 'On the one hand it was intimidating - to say the least - and how could I be musical director with guys who had outsold me a gazillion times. 'But there's a leveller, and that's the realisation that all these musicians started out the same way as you, playing covers in little local bands. And even if you've got Phil Collins on drums and Mark Knopfler on guitar they don't assume they're The Big I Am.' He grins. 'As for the musical direction in rehearsals, it became about diplomacy.' Did he have to correct Elton at any time? He laughs. 'It was more like 'Elton, could you stop disappearing in between songs for a cup of tea.'' There was another commonality. Every one of these performers had had to battle with their own demons. Having re-married to actor Sheridan Forbes, the couple had three daughters, but Ure too had developed a serious drink problem. It began as recreational fun, a post gig relaxant, but became a next day necessity, then a spiral downwards into the void. It was only when one of his daughters caught him secretly swigging from the vodka bottle that he gave up. Midge Ure in Ultravox (Image: unknown) Ure acknowledges that the extremes we enjoy/endure in life can sometimes fuel the artist. 'Songs don't come from books,' he maintains. 'They come from life. So, I get up in the morning, go to a computer and twiddle knows, rather than drive a baker's van like my dad. For me, it's all about doing something that's real and honest and totally heartfelt.' His politics has become more focused over the years. 'I'm disgusted with humanity. We all are. I was born Protestant and after being in London for years, I came back, and someone asked me what religion my pals in London were. I said I had no idea - and it never struck me to ask. And it made me think that in growing up in an environment like that you ask yourself 'What in the world is going on?' And you look around and you see all these conflicts going on because of religion.' What's apparent is the performer has always been his own, focused, hard grafting man. 'I didn't want to do DJ remixes, for example. Why hand over your work to person who's only knowledge of music is how to put a needle on it? Of course, the result can be the situation where the record label calls and tell you've been dropped can happen. But there's nothing you can do about it. And I didn't take rejections personally.' What's his biggest regret? Is it getting the tense all wrong in the lyric of If I Was? 'You have to blame my pal Danny Mitchell for that,' he smiles. 'He wrote it.' Has there ever been a time he hasn't enjoyed a performance? 'Yes, when I was invited to the girls' school, to play and talk about Band Aid,' he says with a dry smile. 'Watching my kids slide down through the floor in sheer embarrassment was hell.' He's still on the escalator then, ready to play in Glasgow? 'It's not for the money. That's a scarce thing, but it's for the love of it. And if you know how to do it . . .' He laughs. 'And yes, the steps are still there, although like me they move a little slower.' Midge Ure plays Big Nights Out, the Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow, on June 6.
Daily Record
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Scots floored to discover what Midge Ure's stage name means after 56 years
Scottish singer-songwriter and record producer Midge Ure has had a career spanning over five decades - but not everyone knows what his stage name actually stands for Scottish singer-songwriter and record producer Midge Ure, who has enjoyed a successful career spanning decades, is one musician who has truly stood the test of time. He achieved considerable success in the 1970s and 1980s, playing in bands such as Slik, Thin Lizzy, Rich Kids, Visage and notably as the second bandleader of Ultravox after John Foxx's departure. His leadership helped propel the band to high chart positions for six years before he decided to disband the group. Moreover, in 1984, he co-wrote and produced the charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", and was instrumental in assembling the iconic Band Aid group. In short, he's known for his significant contributions to the music industry. Despite being in the public eye for over five decades, not everyone is aware of the origin of his stage name. The topic recently surfaced on Reddit, leaving fans surprised by the revelation. One user shared: "James 'Midge' Ure OBE (born 10 October 1953) is a British musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. His stage name, Midge, is a phonetic reversal of Jim, the diminutive form of his actual name. "In 1984, he co-wrote and produced the charity single 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' Interestingly, Midge Ure's stage name is a phonetic reversal of his birth name, Jim." The story behind this is that in an attempt to avoid confusion with his Salvation bandmate, Jim McGinlay, they decided to reverse James' nickname "Jim" to "Midge", creating a phonetic reversal. Midge Ure, now 71, has had a dynamic career trajectory, from his early days in the band Salvation to his rise as a prominent figure in the music industry. After taking over vocal duties when singer Kevin McGinlay left Salvation, the band was renamed Slik and achieved a UK number one single in 1976 with "Forever and Ever", thanks to the songwriting prowess of Bill Martin and Phil Coulter. Interestingly, about a year before this success, Midge Ure turned down an opportunity to join the Sex Pistols, believing that music mogul Malcolm McLaren, who put the band together, had "his priorities completely wrong". Despite his initial reservations about the punk scene, Midge's direction shifted as Slik transformed into PVC2 in an attempt to align with the punk aesthetic. He later formed Rich Kids with ex-Sex Pistol and Blondie touring member Glen Matlock, before joining Visage in 1978 and Ultravox a year later, contributing to some of the most iconic songs of the era. Nowadays, the singer is still super active in the music industry. He tours extensively and continues to work on new music. The star's electronic duo with Charlie Round Turner are heading back to the USA to play a few shows in May. He's also set to tour Australia later this year too.
