Martyn Ware built Electric Foundations

Whether it was the Yorkshire Dadaism of Cabaret Voltaire, or the city’s backbeat of steel foundries, when punk told everyone to have a go, something about Sheffield encouraged bands to pick up synths rather than guitars. After a succession of ‘imaginary bands’ Martyn Ware formed the Human League along with Ian Craig-Marsh and Phil Oakey, with Adrian Wright as ‘Director of Visuals’. When the band split in 1980, Ware and Marsh formed British Electric Foundation, followed by Heaven 17, and everyone involved started having chart hits. This 2013 interview gives a great flavour of the electronic experimentation of the time.

Interviewed by Bill in London, 28.5.13

OK so tell me about growing up and getting into music.
Grew up in Sheffield in a very poor family.  Lived in a two-up, two-down council house in Walkley. With my brother and two sisters, who were older than me, my sister was 20 years older so a lot older than me. I was listening to their record collection, early ’60s pop, Motown. That’s where I learnt my love of pop music.

In the fourth form in secondary school, I started going to this place called Meatwhistle, a sort of arts youth club, set up by Chris Wilkinson, who’s an actor, and his wife Veronica. It’s where I met Glenn [Gregory] and Ian [Craig Marsh] and loads of people I still keep in touch with. It changed my life. It was a council-sponsored project where you could live out your artistic fantasies. We used to have imaginary bands that would only exist for that day and we’d perform for our mates. We even had early video recorders that we could mess around with. We’d make plays

There was nothing to do in Sheffield. It was derelict. The economic situation was grim. So you had to make your own fun. Musically speaking I’d always had a fascination with futuristic sound stuff.

Where did that come from?
Good question. I suppose, futurism in the broadest sense. Looking towards the future. It was the age of space travel. And electronic music was what drove it all. It seemed so mysterious. It would just pop up on occasional records. Then when I got a bit older and started buying my own records I found myself gravitating towards that sort of thing.

About five minutes’ walk from our house was a secondhand store called Rare & Racy. It had every kind of music in there. I just couldn’t get enough stuff into me. I listened to everything from pop, prog rock and psychedelic rock, American stuff and on the other side of the coin, classical music and things like Computer Music by Xenakis. Fantastic! You’d put it on and it sounded terrible, but it didn’t matter because it sounded like the entrance to another world. I wanted things that painted a picture in my mind and that’s been a guiding principle of everything that I’ve done.

Did punk rock have an effect?
Yeah, we were all punks for about three weeks. Ripped T-shirts etc. And then we realised it was all just rock’n’roll. To be honest we’d had our punk phase in the early ’70s with T. Rex and glam and the New York Dolls. Punk all seemed a bit quaint to me. We were in a slightly different part of our lives. It wasn’t a big discovery of music to us, it was an opportunity for self-expression. We started a fanzine called Gun Rubber. It was the sudden realisation that you could create stuff, you didn’t have to live in awe of those that did. It wasn’t just music, it was art, publishing, and an explosion of creativity. It helped to visualise the possibilities. So that was much more exciting than the music which we soon came to realise was basically pub rock.

There was one epiphany, when one of our imaginary bands did a gig at the Salter Lane Art College, this was six months before the first Human League gig. We supported a Manchester band the Drones, who were terrible, by the way. God knows how we got the gig. There was a bunch hanging out together, us, Cabaret Voltaire, Adi Newton, 2.3, we formed a supergroup, before any of us had been famous or even in a group (apart from Cabs). Apart from Richard Kirk and Chris Watson we were all playing the wrong instruments. We had one rehearsal and most of that was spent deciding which songs we were going to do. We did a version of ‘Dr Who’ and ‘Cock In My Pocket’ by Iggy Pop. As we got halfway through this, the Drones manager came on and said. ‘Listen, the Drones want to come on now’, so this song evolved into a chant going ‘The Drones wanna come on now.’ The audience was looking on bemused. Unbelievably, we were terrible, but the Drones were worse. And they had a record contract. It really made us realise that everything was possible. So we did start taking it more seriously.

Was this a precursor to your band the Future?
I think it was just after the Future and before Human League. We got our first recording studio, it was a hovel that used to be a small engineering firm, a room in a derelict building essentially. I’d bought a Korg 700S monophonic synth on HP [hire purchase]. Ian had bought a System 100 on HP which was the basic tools for us to create.

It was basically synths, tapes and voices wasn’t it?
Yeah. We’d bought a Sony two-track which had sound-on-sound capabilities. Let’s have a real go at getting the tracks to sound good. This was me, Adi [Newton, later of Clock DVA] and Ian. We enquired around for someone who had a four-track recorder. And we found this guy who used to work for Radio Sheffield. He’d retired but he’d got this TEAC four track, which to us was like… my god, can you imagine what you can do with that. Ian and I were computer operators at this time so we had a bit of disposable income.

Anyway, we booked a weekend with this guy who lived in a typical suburban house with his wife on the outskirts of town. It was in his front room, with his wife making us cups of tea while we sang about Virgin Of The Time Dunes. It was just… bizarre. We weren’t musicians in the traditional sense. Our compilation The Golden Hour of the Future documents this. We did seven or eight songs. We liked them. There was something in them.

I was working on nightshifts at Lucas Industries doing payroll and bored to tears. I thought why don’t we try and get appointments with some A&R men in London. I made a punch card computer printout with the words ‘This Is The Future. This is your chance to meet the Future. Here are the two dates they will be in London. Don’t miss this opportunity’. And amazingly we got about 12 appointments in two days. We took these bizarre demos to everyone from EMI and Warner Bros. We’d never even been to London! We got there, and most of them took about a minute. But there were two companies, Island and Virgin, who, while they weren’t interested in signing us, showed an interest

Ian and I realised we couldn’t write songs with Adi because he was on a different path. So that’s when we decided to find another singer. I would’ve suggested Glenn but he’d just moved to London a month before to seek his fame and fortune. Initially as a photographer but he also he wanted to be in a band. He was in 57 Men which went on to become Wang Chung.

I said, I’ve got this mate of mine from school called Phil [Oakey]. We were still best mates. I said he looks amazing. Good-looking guy, funny haircut. I’m not sure he’s got much of a voice but we’ll find out. But what we wanted was someone who could help with the songwriting. So we gave him the backing track to ‘Being Boiled’. Asked him ‘Do you like it?’ He said he did and went away to try and write some lyrics to it. He brought it in and started singing, ‘Listen to the voice of Buddha, saying stop your seri-culture’. Woah woah, what you talking about here?! He said it was about how parents treat their children. The reason we got on so well was because we were so opinionated. I thought this is brilliant. You’ve definitely got the job.

What gear were you using?
The Korg and System 100.

And a drum machine?
No, all the rhythms were done on the hardware sequencer of the System 100. Every sound on that early stuff was created from scratch. Our new rule was it all had to be electronically generated. That became our manifesto.

It was a different world. I remember going into a shop called Musical Sounds in Sheffield. That’s where I saw the Korg 700S. I was considering learning to drive, but it was the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and the buses were 2p at that time. So I bought the synth. I still can’t drive.

When I went into buy that synth, everyone in the shop looked like they were in the Eagles and it was full of people doing Stairway To Heaven. It was pretty much the same when we started recording. Everywhere you’d go people found it hard to relate to it. We loved Amon Duul, Vangelis, Krautrock. Most rock fans didn’t have a clue. My girlfriend at the time that I did the Reproduction album, I played it to her and she was trying to wrap her head around, she said. ‘Yeah, it’s a bit like Led Zeppelin’. She was only trying to please me, but there was that inability to figure out with what was going on.

We recorded ‘Being Boiled’ in the studio we were in. That version was the first time he’d sung it. There were no second chances to drop it in later. Everyone to this day loved the first version much more than the second. For the first version you couldn’t bounce it more than four or five times it would have turned to mush. There something to do said for limitations.

How did you get the deal?
Paul Bower, whose punk band 2.3 was signed to Fast Product, said we should send it to [label founder] Bob Last. We honestly didn’t believe anyone would see it as anything other than a curio. But Bob loved it. We created the cover. My original version was very condensed and Bob thinned it out a bit but kept the central stuff. Next thing you know, it was getting played three or four times a week on John Peel. Over a period of three months we sold 5,000 which was astonishing. There was nothing else remotely like it. No one had taken on the rigour of only using electronic instruments and nobody was trying to make pop songs with inadequate tools. It was like electronic punk.

Did you do ‘Dignity of Labour’ before ‘Being Boiled’?
We were determined to show as much diversity in our music as possible… it’s almost like a self-destruct button in my career. So just when it looks like we might actually make a bit of money, we want to put out a 12-inch, purely electronic, with no vocals! To his eternal credit Bob said, yeah let’s do it.

Shortly after that you signed to Virgin.
Bob became our manager for that two-and-a-half-year period, with the first two albums. We did two tours with Siouxsie and the Banshees, we did one in Europe with Iggy Pop. In the UK we were playing to punk audiences. We were generally scared we’d get bottled off. I think the secret for us was bravery and the fact we had visual accompaniment, and we were at least trying to do something different.

We did one gig at Victoria Hall in Stoke and everyone was like, ‘Are you alright Martyn?’ ‘Yeah I’m fine. Why?’  ‘You’re covered in blood’. This skinhead had been banging his head on the stage, sucking up the blood and spitting it out.

We did some headline gigs in small clubs in towns in Germany. I can’t remember the name of the town, but we went on stage and I knew it wasn’t going well after two songs when they set fire to a Union Jack. Then they started throwing things at us. We’d always made a point of having the backing track on a reel-to-reel on the stage rather than hiding it. At that point in Europe they used to often use the Hell’s Angels as security. Well, they disappeared. And the stage got invaded.

So how did the deal come about?
After ‘Being Boiled’ came out there were several labels interested, people like Chris Parry at Fiction, EMI and a few others. We very quickly came to the conclusion that Virgin were right for us. There was no vibe at EMI. But Virgin we immediately got on with, it was like one giant brainstorm. You’d walk into Vernon Yard and there were people shouting from the top of the stairs. We lived in Notting Hill at the time and we were in there most days of the week. Bob lived in Edinburgh. We were in there even more later with Heaven 17 because we didn’t have a manager of any description.

How did the Human League split happen?
We had two albums out, both of which we were pleased with, but neither yielded a hit. There was a very slow inexorable pressure being put on us to have a hit. We released ‘Holiday 80’, which we were convinced was the one. We were convinced that ‘Marianne’ was a good song and would be a hit. But it wasn’t. So Virgin bribed someone to get us on Top of the Pops, even though we were about number 70 and you needed to be in the Top 40 to get on there normally. It helped a bit but the jury was out.

There were some electronic records in the charts by then
I can’t remember the exact chronology, but Gary Numan brought out ‘Are Friends Electric’, OMD came along, so everyone seemed to be having hits except us. It felt like we’d missed the boat. We were still living on £30 a week. We were preparing for a new tour in Europe. It was turning into a multimedia show. Bigger and better projections. I suppose because there was more tension going on, even though they had faith in us, the next album was make or break.

How were relations in the band?
Me and Phil would have the occasional contretemps, but no more than you’d expect when you live in each other’s pockets. There were no disagreements about creative direction.

Unbeknown to me – which Bob Last has since admitted to – he was conniving with Virgin to destabilise the group by a whispering campaign in Philip’s ear that he was the main man. So one day they called a band meeting. Bob’s there, Ian’s there, Phil’s there. They’re all looking a bit strange at me. Martyn we’re throwing you out of the group.

A complete shock?
Hard to comprehend because there was no reason for it to happen. More to the point, Phil had been my best friend since we were 16. So I was stunned. First thing I said, I think this is my group, you’re not throwing me out of my group. But it was all a fait accompli. They’d already figured out how they’d approach the new group, and who would write with Phil, which was Jo Callis, they’d already got someone to produce the album.

And they were going to get me to go up to Edinburgh to talk to me about setting up a production company, which they thought was right for me. But what they hadn’t bargained for was Ian joining me. I don’t blame Jo for this, by the way, he’s a mate and a really good songwriter. He was Bob’s best mate.

In short order I soon got over it, thought up a name for the new production company, British Electronic Foundation [BEF]. Bob reckoned he could get me a deal with Virgin. I said Ian has to be part of it. But the thing that really upset me was that Phil had said to various people at the record company that he didn’t want to be associated with the ‘un-aesthetic’ part of the band anymore. Which was me. But it did provide a great deal of impetus after.

So there was a competitive element after the split? Did it feel a bit like the Space Race?
Totally. Oh yeah. It was well known that we used the same studio in shifts, so they were doing Dare [as Human League] and we were doing Penthouse & Pavement [as Heaven 17]. And some of the backing tracks that me and Ian had been writing became the songs for Penthouse & Pavement.

The first thing that came out was the Music For Stowaways album wasn’t it?
Yeah they were sonic maquettes. They weren’t really songs.

‘Fascist Groove Thing’ was an instrumental on there wasn’t it?
Yeah. What was important was that we got something out quickly that showed the intent of the company, almost like a manifesto. Music For Stowaways was the arty side and the pop manifesto side was Music Of Quality & Distinction Volume 1.

You never managed hits together, yet once you split up you both start having them.
The weird thing is that as Bob Last tells the story now, he regards that as justification for what happened. There might be some truth in that. I don’t know, but the split was incredibly upsetting.

Do you have a relationship with Phil now?
There was a BBC documentary about ten years ago – maybe more – and the researcher asked if I’d be willing to do an interview in the same room as Phil and the girls. It was the first time we’d met in the flesh since 1982. He lived in Sheffield and I moved down here so we never bumped into each other. It was quite poignant in a way. Phil’s a lovely guy. He’s a bit angular if you don’t understand him, but he’s got a heart of gold. He comes across as a bit awkward but he’s also disarmingly honest and he genuinely thrilled to see me.

So when you produced the Tina turner album was that under the BEF banner?
Yeah.

And was Ian working on it too?
No, by that time Ian had had enough. He was involved in Hot Gossip, which was a bunch of covers of Human League, Heaven 17 and even a Sting song on there. He just turned round to me one day and said, I don’t think it’s for me this. Everything we did with the Human League was split three ways and the same for Heaven 17. But as soon as it turned into more traditional production, so it was a relationship between the producer and artist, it stopped being equal and Ian thought it was time to step out. I volunteered to train up Glenn, but he said no I can’t be bothered.

How do you feel now about electronic music being so prevalent, did it feel inevitable?
Well, like all innovation, as it proliferates it becomes less flavoursome. We’re now in the endless iterations of the diffusion of electronic music.

It’s 2013 and you’re releasing a new BEF album – Music of Quality and Distinction 3: Dark. What’s the reason for exhuming the series?
I always wanted to do a volume 3. I planned to do them every ten years but it came to the millennium and I couldn’t think of any exciting vocalists, so I just didn’t get round to doing it. Then in 2010 I was putting together the ten-CD boxed set for Illustrious of all the stuff that had never been released, which came out on Mute, and I thought I’d really like to do a BEF album incorporating the ideas I’ve learnt from doing all this ambient and sound design stuff.

How have your studio techniques changed?
A lot of the stuff on the new album started out as either real instruments or samples of real instruments, but then got so processed and chopped up and reordered, atomised and reconstructed. Something like ‘The Look of Love’ [Dusty Springfield] backing track. Started working on that in Ableton. I became obsessed with current processing techniques. Took some of the original backing track and chopped it up and chopped it up, slicing it and dicing it, seeing if there’s something in the essential DNA that could be incorporated into the new backing track. There are little tiny hooks which are fantastic part of Bacharach’s writing. There’s a tiniest hint of those in this ambient soundscape and it worked.

One day I listened to ‘The Night’ by Frankie Valli, and I really love that song. I was listening to the lyric, it’s almost like a stalker, a bit like ‘Every Breath You Take’ by Police. Then I thought maybe I could do an album of stalker songs! Then I thought of taking the northern soul backing track from Frankie Valli and put a more David Lynch style backing track. The second one was ‘Didn’t I Blow your Mind’, which is a very dark, vengeful lyric. The final bit of the jigsaw was finding people daft enough to have a go at singing this. There’s not much money in it, but whatever we do we’ll split the proceeds 50/50.

The Kim Wilde track was arranged by Brian Duffy from Modified Toy Orchestra. He picks up toys from skips and car boot sales, with chips in, Speak and Spells, Barbies etc, he picks them apart and turns them into instruments. Honestly, it’s brilliant. Next thing he sends me a Logi song session with 78 tracks of individually recorded tracks. Each chord has to be recorded separately. It’s been recorded on a non-MIDI monophonic synth with Kim Wilde sounding more contemporary than she’s ever sounded.

How do you work these days? Do you use soft synths?
Yeah.

What happened to your old analogue gear?
I sold it all when I was skint. Also where do you store all this stuff? You don’t need it now. I mixed the whole of this album on my computer. Apart from the vocals which were either recorded at Strongroom or the singers did them themselves and sent them over.

It’s all part of the virtuous circle of trust, that if you put faith in people, they will deliver. I’m an enormous believer in that. If you give people creative responsibility they will respond to it. I’m the opposite of a control freak.

© Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton