Everyone has a different definition of success. For some, success is fame and fortune. For others, success is having a loving, supportive family. Both are legitimate, but universally, everyone can agree that success is unique to each of us.
Looking at a professional musician, you would probably say success is a wall of gold records and hit after hit. A tremendous accomplishment, what about the musician who goes their own way to create what they sincerely believe to be the best music possible? This is the case with Scotland’s Midge Ure, who has sustained a music career for over half a century.
Ure, now seventy-one years old, has been on a fascinating journey which found him working with ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock in Rich Kids, spending a brief time with Thin Lizzy, working with the late Steve Strange in Visage, and leaving a lasting impact with Ultravox. Just part of the story, Ure and Bob Geldof co-wrote one of the biggest modern charity songs of all time, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Achievements you would file under the mainstream world’s idea of success, the mark of Ure’s impact, is the ability to keep diversifying and staying true to himself. A fascinating, talented individual, Mide Ure recently sat down to talk about the most recent chapter of his life, plans for new music, and more.
Cryptic Rock – The Last time we spoke was in 2018. You have done a lot since then, with touring and other projects. Catching up, how would you describe the last seven years?
Midge Ure – I can’t believe it’s seven years, for a start. It has been busy and progressive. It’s been an interesting period. I’ve done a lot of touring and built up the touring schedule. I recently finished the UK leg of the latest tour, which is the Catalogue tour. We did twenty-seven dates or something, which is quite a feat in the country the size of the UK. We did fantastically, and it has been an absolute joy doing it.
I suppose one of the highlights of the seven-year gap would have been just over a year ago. We did a big birthday bash at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and it was just one of those magical evenings. You could do nothing wrong. People had flown in from all over to be there because it’s such a beautiful place to see a performance. It’s been a hectic but interesting last few years.
Cryptic Rock – As you said, you have done a lot of touring, which is excellent. You have also been to America quite a few times. You mentioned the Royal Albert Hall. That became a live album, Royal Albert Hall 04.10.23, which you released in November 2024. The live album is excellent and has a very unique sound. Historically, Royal Albert Hall has not been such a great place to record, but they have worked there to improve it. What was it like performing and recording there?
Midge Ure – You have to remember that this venue was designed and built by Queen Victoria for her husband, Prince Albert. It was designed as a public space. It holds five and a half or six thousand people. It’s oval. It was designed to carry human voice, not amplified music. It was intended for someone on stage, orating, shouting out to the six thousand people.
When bands started playing there amplified, it used to sound absolutely dreadful. That is because of the echoes and delay that you would get across the back of the hall. They have done a huge amount of work on it, and it now sounds spectacular.
Having said all that, I didn’t intend to record at the Albert Hall. The Albert Hall has a kudos attached to the name. We didn’t do a DVD because it was horrendously expensive. If you want to record something and use the Albert Hall name in the recording, live at the Albert Hall, or whatever, you have to negotiate a deal with the venue because the venue is more famous than you.
With modern technology, digital recording desks, and digital desks, a front-of-house board is basically the same as a recording studio board, just about. We record just about every night that we play. We don’t listen to them all, but we record them just in case you think that was great.
We just happened to have recorded that. I didn’t know anything about it, so I was quite relaxed about it. It wasn’t like, “This is a big moment. You have to get this right.” It was just to relax and enjoy it. A month or so after the concert happened, I found out we had these files. We checked them out, and it was great. We made a deal with Albert Hall, and lo and behold, out it comes.
Cryptic Rock—That is fantastic and a surprise. It is interesting to learn that it wasn’t something planned. Your renditions of these songs at Royal Albert Hall during the night were unique.
Midge Ure – We used to have a famous BBC DJ here who was cutting edge, John Peel. He was the Rock guy. He had an evening program on Radio 1, which was the big station. People would do sessions for John Peel. They’d spend ages making a new album. Then they’d do a session in the studio at the BBC. They’d knock off four songs in three hours.
The sessions were always better than the albums because the pressure was off. You walk in, set up as a band, and go right, three, four, here we go. Bang, you just do it. You’re under no pressure. The recordings were always fantastic. I suspect that happened with this Albert Hall recording because I wasn’t thinking that I had to get the notes right or make sure I was singing the correct lyrics. I just relaxed into it to the extent that, because the tour is called Catalogue, it’s looking back from the mid-70s right through to now, and all the stuff that I’ve done, I started the entire show in this massive venue on my own with an acoustic guitar.
Then I brought on a couple of musicians with a cello and a violin. I did a couple of renditions of tunes with that setup. Then I did some with the band playing quasi-acoustic. Then I went back on later with the full electronic thing. It did capture something. There is an essence to it. I put it down to my naivety or not knowing that we were recording this for posterity’s sake.
Cryptic Rock – Hearing the story behind it makes the live album more interesting. It is recommended for anyone who has not checked it out yet.
Last year also marked the 40th anniversary of “Do They Know It’s Christmas.” They released a 2024 edition and put it on an EP with the original recording, etc. Forty years later, how does it feel that this song still has a massive impact and is still being recorded and producing funds for a special cause?
Midge Ure – Quite surprising. When you rewind to when we did it back in ’84, all we thought about was the Christmas of ’84, ’85. That was it. It was immediate. We weren’t thinking a year or 10 years down the line because we hadn’t thought that if you write and record a Christmas song and it becomes a hit, there’s a very good chance it’s going to get played every year.
Because we gave the songwriting royalties to the Band-Aid Trust, that means every time that thing has been played over the last forty years, it generates income for the cause. It’s not something that you would sit and think about. Also, bear in mind that forget a charity record; any piece of music you created back then had a very short shelf life. It has a longer shelf life in America and Canada than it does in the UK.
You’d record something, and if you were lucky, it might chart two weeks after it’s released. It might stay in the charts for two to three weeks, then drop and disappear. It never gets heard again until something disastrous happens many years later, and they play it to say, “Oh, the poor Midge Ure died today. Here’s his hit from 1982,” or whatever.
We never saw a life beyond that life, that immediate hit that you’d get. Then, of course, the internet changed absolutely everything. Social media, streaming television, and Netflix all give longevity to pieces of music that didn’t exist back then. Mix that with the fact that it’s a Christmas record. Yes, that thing just rolls on forever.
Cryptic Rock is incredible. As you said, with the Band-Aid trust, its ability to still generate funds is inspiring. That is what matters most.
Midge Ure – It’s funny because I only recently saw the movie Daddy’s Home 2 (2017). At the end, all of a sudden, it was all about them singing, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” There were all these Hollywood A-listers singing that song. I remember that they paid half a million dollars or something to use that track when they requested to do it. That’s half a million dollars that didn’t exist prior to them using it in a movie. Stuff like that happens all the time. It just keeps the funds rolling and keeps all the projects we’ve been funding for forty years going.
Cryptic Rock – That must be amazing beyond your wildest dreams. Like you said, you never anticipated that. Look what it has done for forty years now. From a charting position, that song kept George Michael’s “Last Christmas” from the number one spot at the time.
Midge Ure – It did. It’s partly George’s fault because he told his fans to buy the Band-Aid record, even though he desperately wanted to have his third number one or something in a row. “Last Christmas” was going to be it. It’s a mark of the man, really.
Cryptic Rock – Right. That is very George Michael, as you mentioned. A very unselfish individual, from everything you read. Wow. You mentioned you have more touring planned, including dates in the USA.
Midge Ure – Yes, it’s fairly sporadic. It’s not a unified tour but a series of dates. I’m coming over, though.
Mainly instigated by an appearance at Cruel World in the Cruel World Festival in Pasadena. Then a few dates in and around it to make sense. If I’m bringing people across from the UK, it doesn’t make sense to do one show. I’m going to do half a dozen shows.
Cryptic Rock – Fantastic. Shortly after you visit California, one of those shows is in Pawling, New York, at Daryl’s House.
Midge Ure – Yes. Great venue. I love it there. They’re so incredibly professional. They’ve got their act together big time. A lot of venues don’t, but these guys do. They’re incredibly helpful and very nice. I’m looking forward to going back again.
Cryptic Rock – It truly is an excellent venue. It is most likely not easy to pick set lists with such a wide array of material you have over the years. With this tour, what will you be concentrating on regarding set lists?
Midge Ure – Because I’ve played over there recently, it must be five or six months ago I was last in America and played Daryl’s House. I’ve been thinking about what I didn’t play last time around. Obviously, there are key tunes that you won’t get away with not playing. I’m trying to find a few to throw in amongst the hits I’ve got to play anyway. Things that I didn’t do last time around.
I’m just compiling a little list. I reached out on social media and asked, “Look, what would you like to hear that I haven’t done before?” I’m trying to choose something that I currently like from my catalogue, but it’s difficult. Any song that you’ve ever written, you go back and look at it again. I don’t listen to my stuff. You go back and listen to it again, and you think, “Nah. No, I don’t get that anymore. I’m not sure. I’m not the same person who wrote that.” I’m quite a bit older and have different views on it.
I’ve just thrown it out there. The ones that people are coming back with are quite interesting selections. I’ve got to watch that I don’t make it too radical because 50% of the audience that comes to see you usually don’t want to be there. They’ve been dragged along by their significant other half who does want to be there. This is payback time for some people. “You’re coming to see Midge because I had to go and watch some football game that you wanted to see.” That’s the kind of thing.
You have to think, if 50% of the people only know “If I Was,” “Dear God,” “Vienna” or something, you’ve got to think of trying to make the set as interesting for them as possible. Your hardcore fans will probably love whatever you do anyway.
Cryptic Rock – You always put on a memorable live show. It will be exciting to see you come back and do more shows.
Midge Ure – This is slightly different. It’s the same setup I did last time. I called it “A Band and a Box,” which is me and a keyboard player. The box is a computer. I’ve programmed some drums, a synth bass, etc. I play either the keys or guitar. He plays all the proper keys and vocals. It’s a way of performing without the horrendous costs of bringing a band across.
It allows me to expand on what I can perform. In many of the songs, we found out last time, people were saying, “I haven’t heard that since 1981” or “I’ve never heard you perform that live.” It’s because, acoustically, you can’t or haven’t the right tools to do it with a local band or pickup band.
This has enabled me to delve into some of the deeper cuts and do really good versions of the songs that people would expect to hear. It’s the band and the box again. I have to shuffle around some of the songs, but the format is good. It’s an electric guitar, synths, and my box.
Cryptic Rock – This awards people an opportunity to hear songs, like you said, that they have not heard in a very long time. You talk about electric guitars and synths. That brings back something you said in one of our past interviews, which has always stuck. You said, “What is a Midge Ure?” People aren’t that familiar with the name. It sticks with you because it is very humorous.
Either way, you are just an eclectic songwriter, an eclectic performer. You have been involved in so many different projects in many different styles. From Rock-n-Roll to Synthpop, Synthrock, etc.. How would you define yourself as an artist?
Midge Ure – I think it’s a desire to do something good, not to be part of a musical clique or army. In my first ever band, I found myself being like a Bay City Rollers-type clone band. They weren’t that. They were actually a really good band in Scotland. We ended up having to record other people’s songs. We felt like puppets being controlled by the songwriters, producers, and label. I vowed after that never, ever to let that happen again. The only way you can do that is to do exactly what you want.
You can’t turn on and blame someone else if you are steering the ship. If you’re writing the songs, producing the music, working on the graphics, doing the live shows, designing the stage sets, and all those things, without being a megalomaniac, you get no one to turn around and blame. I didn’t want to blame anybody. I wanted to go out there, follow through, and do my thing. Sometimes that’s been successful.
If you look at my weird career path, from above, it just looks like I’m a ball in a pinball machine, bouncing from side to side. “Oh, he’s in a Rock band. Oh, no, he’s in a Synth band. Oh, no, he’s in a Punk band.” That’s just progress. Each one of those led on from the thing prior. When I finished with my band Slick,
I was invited to join the Rich Kids with Glenn Matlock, ex-Sex Pistols. I moved to London and joined the Rich Kids. I bought a synthesizer in 1978, wanting to introduce it to the band. It immediately broke the band up because half of them hated it, but half of us loved it. The half who loved it formed Visage with all our favourite musicians. We created that. Through working on Visage, one of the musicians was Billy Curry, the keyboard player in Ultravox. I watched Ultravox fall apart and then joined the other three guys who were left and carried that on.
Although everything looks kind of random from above, everything is connected. Each one connects to the next. I found it fabulous. I found it really fascinating. If I had just been looking for a successful band to join, I would have joined Thin Lizzy. But I did Thin Lizzy when I had just joined Ultravox, and my heart left with Ultravox with nothing in my pocket and no future but some exciting music. That’s what I chose to do.
Cryptic Rock – That is what makes for great music. The pinball machine, as you describe it, is what makes your music so fascinating through the years, and all the things you have been involved in.
Since you have been concentrating on touring, it has been a while since you released an original studio album. Is that something that you have in the cards for the future?
Midge Ure – I have. I’m in the studio now. I’m always dabbling and writing bits and pieces. Sometimes you think, “Oh, God, if I just get some kind of block on this.” I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. I’ve been working on this new album since last I spoke to you! I just think, “You know what? I’m finding it difficult not to retread in my old footsteps.”
This is me doing this, not anyone else saying this. This is me saying I’m just a bit aware that I could tend to recreate something that I’ve already created. I don’t want to do that. I take my time. I work on these things. I tweak them. I add a little bit. I take a bit away. I alter it. Instinctively, I’ll know when it’s finished. I don’t have a label banging on my door, demanding that the record be finished next month, which is what you used to have. I take as long as it takes.
The only person who’ll know when it’s finished is me. In the meantime, rather than just banging my head against a brick wall here thinking, “Well, I’ve gotten this done and I’ll do this and I’ll do that,” I went off and wrote and recorded an entire instrumental album, which hopefully will be coming out this year. I found that fascinating. I found that interesting to do. I found it fun and much less stressful than writing an album full of songs. Stressful, not from anyone else, stressful from me, putting pressure on myself to try and create something different enough that I would still feel satisfied with it in a few years.
Cryptic Rock – Hopefully, it will come together soon. Do you feel like the instrumental record is almost a palate cleanser for you to step into an entire album with vocals and such?
Midge Ure – I think that’s actually a lovely way of putting it. It’s a palate cleanser, isn’t it? It’s a little sorbet between albums. You’re right. It kind of refreshed me. It gave me a whole load of joy doing it. It was an interesting process doing it because a lot of what I do anyway is very cinematic, very atmospheric, and stuff. It gave me a chance to delve into that. Now I’m back working on songs with a renewed vigor. So yes, I think that’s a lovely way of putting it. I wish I’d thought of that.
Cryptic Rock – As you said, you don’t want to repeat yourself. Sometimes it is natural that you feel like you are repeating yourself. You do not want it to be almost paint-by-numbers. You don’t want to say, “Well, I did the same thing.” That is understood.
Midge Ure – It’s what they used to do in the ’60s, isn’t it? Even in the ’70s. Someone would have a hit record, and they’d write one that was exactly the same except for a few notes. That would be the sound, especially in Tin Pan Alley or Brill Building days. They’d say, “Right, I need a song that sounds exactly like that, but just a few different notes. That’s going to be a follow-up single. ” Maybe I was scarred from my experience with my first band, and I just cannot go back down that route. I work extremely hard at coming up with interesting angles and viewpoints when it comes to writing songs.
Cryptic Rock –That is a great way to be. You can see it in any genre as well. When any genre becomes popular in the mainstream, you suddenly see artists all start to sound alike. It blends a little bit. That is almost like the tail end of a trend. Glam Metal in the ’80s or Synth music during the ’80s was a good example. Some of it all started to sound the same.
Midge Ure – It’s formulaic, yeah.
Cryptic Rock – Very true. Do you expect the instrumental album to come out this year?
Midge Ure – I certainly hope so, yes. We have a few ideas about how to market it and what to do with it. It’s a tricky thing. How do you get a radio station to play an instrumental track? It’s very, very difficult.
Some stations specialize in Filmic music, Icelandic music, or textural Modern Neoclassical music, I think they call it. Some places do that, but you have to go out there and find them. I can’t just give it to a regular label because they’ll first ask, “And where’s the single?” Well, there isn’t one. It is what it is. It’s a piece of music. So yeah, I’m hoping this year.
Cryptic Rock – Right. Out of curiosity, is this forthcoming instrumental project linear? By linear, meaning that sometimes instrumental albums, you are unsure where a song begins and ends. It all kind of blends together. Which is excellent, but different. How would you describe your approach?
Midge Ure – Oh, no. They’re individual tracks. Some cross-feed into others, but it’s not some symphonic opus. It’s not a journey that I’m taking you on. The ideas all started, and the melodies started during lockdown. It happened while looking out the window at home, seeing the view change over that long period, and seeing it differently, with the same vision but completely different light and skies. It took place with the feeling of being separated from the world at a time when we all didn’t know what was coming around the corner.
If anything, we’re sitting there with empty diaries. We’re sitting there, not knowing if I could ever return to work. As far as I’ve been a professional musician, I’ve never had an empty diary where I didn’t know what I was doing in six months’ time. I didn’t know what I was doing next weekend, didn’t know what I was doing in five years because it had all gone. It’s a very strange position to be in. To get up every morning, look out the window, see that view, and imagine what might be in front of you or what could be in front of you. It’s quite inspiring in a scary way. It’s not a threatening album. It’s a very contemplative album.
Cryptic Rock – Interesting. Some artists do an opus, as you called it
Midge Ure – Right. Maybe it’s still my old-school head. It’s like three, four-minute sections of music, each one to stand alone. They’re all compatible with each other.
Cryptic Rock – Great. You mentioned how it was conceived mainly during the pandemic and lockdowns.
Midge Ure – The ideas were coming from that. I think I consider myself lucky because I had a studio at home. I could carry on being creative when most people were just sitting in the gardens, wondering what was going to happen. It was instigated during that period, but executed beyond that.
Cryptic Rock—Hopefully, we will hear it soon. A lot of interesting events have occurred since the pandemic, some of them very tragic. Just in recent months, we have seen horrid wildfires destroying Los Angeles. This is a very literal fire, but it seems like figuratively, the world has been on fire, too, in recent years. What are your thoughts on the state of the world today? Do you feel we are heading towards a better place, meaning more unity and open dialogue?
Midge Ure – I think it’s very difficult to get worse than it is right at this very second. We seem to be tap dancing on the precipice of something. That’s very scary. We’ve lived through some scary times. I am now seventy-one. We’ve lived through the Cold War, and we’ve lived through the Cuban crisis. We just haven’t learned anything from all those moments, where it could have gone either way.
It’s sad when I look back at some of the songs I’ve written about that over the years, “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes.” It was written about that. What do you do in the last four minutes of your life? If there’s a nuclear war and there’s a missile coming to you, you find your partner, you put on your favourite piece of music, and you dance with tears in your eyes. It’s sadly still, if not more, relevant today than it was when I wrote it back in the early ’80s.
It’s a scary time. As someone once said, the easiest way to create chaos is to divide the people. Bring them down into groups and give them something to hate. People aren’t born hating. People are taught to hate. If you listen to the wrong people, that’s how Nazi Germany started. Take perfectly normal people, give them something to hate, and rile them up. All of a sudden, you have absolute chaos. It’s a very scary world.
Cryptic Rock – Most certainly. To your point, isn’t that the most frustrating thing we never seem to learn from the past? All this history behind us shows us our mistakes, and we never seem to learn. That is the most frustrating thing about humanity. We do not seem to learn from the past.
Midge Ure – Yeah. It’s all there. I think the problem is that a lot of the people who should be learning about this stuff are too busy burning the books. It’s very difficult to teach someone history if there’s nothing to read it from. It’s just frightening. It’s global. It’s basic instinct stuff. It’s tribalism. It’s geared up. It was quite frightening to see the number of oligarchs who are now behind the wheel of not just industry, but government. I find that absolutely petrifying because they don’t get into government and governmental positions to do good in the world, to do good for themselves. That’s scary.
Cryptic Rock – It is truly frightening. What is scary on a more regular citizens’ level is that you see the division amongst people. We need to teach children that as you get older, someone may have a different point of view of you, a different political point of view of you, but this should not define them. We must remind ourselves of the importance of judging people by their character.
To your point about tribalism, in many instances, people do not regard other people as human beings. Everyone puts themselves in categories. That is where the real danger comes.
Midge Ure – Yes. If you’re not with me, you’re against me attitude. I was born into that in Scotland in Glasgow, with Catholics and Protestants. I’ve seen the results of people using religion as a weapon.
You think, surely, that’s not what you were taught. Politics is the same thing. Take someone else’s point of view. Learn from their point of view. You can argue it. That’s what debate is all about. That’s not a reason to pull out a gun and shoot somebody or hit them in the face because you don’t agree with their stance or their thought process. It’s very divisive and very scary.
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