takin' a walk"Taking a Stroll Through the 80's: A Conversation with Martin Fry of ABC."
Join @thebuzzknight with Martin Fry, the iconic frontman of the legendary 80's band ABC. Known for timeless hits like "The Look of Love" and "Poison Arrow", Martin shares fascinating stories from his journey through the golden era of new wave music. From the creation of their groundbreaking album The Lexicon of Love to reflection on David Bowie, this conversation is a must listen to for fans of 80's pop culture and beyond. Martin also discusses his autobiography "A Lexicon of Life" which takes you behind the scenes to his creative process along with his health challenges in his life that he had the strength to battle and persevere.
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Taking a Walk.
But when I do look out into the audience, I realize that music is a communal thing. You know, it's kind of in reggae talk about a sort of universal consciousness. But I realized that those records were hits that we had in the day because people celebrated them. You know, it made sense to them, the guys at the time. It meant something, you know what I mean. It captured a little bit of the moment.
Welcome to the Taken a Walk Podcast, the podcast that delves into the stories about musicians and their creative process. If you want to explore musicians and their resilience and how they embrace the power of music, check out our companion podcast, Music Saved Me, hosted by Lynn Hoffman. Today, we're thrilled to have with us a true legend of the New Romantic era and beyond, Martin Fry, the charismatic frontman of ABC. Martin's distinctive voice and sharp songwriting have given us timeless hits like The Look of Love and Poison Arrow. We'll be delving into Martin's newly release stuto biography, The Look of Love. Welcome Martin Fry to takeing a Walk with buzz Night Now.
Well, Martin, thanks for being on the Taking a Walk podcast. I appreciate it. And since it's called taken a Walk, I wanted to ask you, Yeah, if there was someone you could take a walk with, living or dead. Doesn't have to be a musical figure.
But it could be.
Who would that be and where do you think you'd like to take that walk with them?
It would be nice to take a walk through the center of London with David Bowie.
Yeah.
I just finished a book by Paul Morley called The Age of Bowie and it kind of traces Bowie's kind of sixties basically when he was trying to have a hit record. He had a hit eventually with Space Oddity, but he spent a lot of time in Soho, Regent Street, all those kind of streets and back alleys in central London. Yeah, so it'd be nice for him to give me a tour of London, a city I know.
Well, yeah, and.
The book, Oh, that would be marvelous.
Obviously.
When David Boie finally broke through in the UK, particularly with Ziggy Star as the rising full of Ziggy Starters, the front cover was him in a on Hadden Street. I think it was just in the in the post books there. Yeah, so that'd be an interesting trip, a little wander through through London town.
I think that'd be great. Now, you must have encountered mister Bowie over your career.
Yeah, I mean I'm a massive fan still am. And a friend of mine, Paul Moreley, wrote this fantastic book, The Age of Bowie, and I realized I've never read it until now.
I just saw Paul recently.
He's a great writer, and I kind of realized reading the book that i'd been mourning David Bowie. You know, he passed away as we all know what, five years ago now, I think. So, Yeah, it's kind of it's taken me a while. I'm such a big fan. It's takes me a while to go back to the music and play station to station and a Ladd Insane and yeah Americans, all those great albums he made, yeah back in the day. Yeah, when we first went to We're doing some recording with Trevor Horn on our first album in Lexican Love, and we went to Good Earth Studios for a couple of days and Tony Visconsin owned that studio, so David Bowie showed up there he was kind of doing performing in Baral.
I think this is nineteen eighty two, I think. So we were kind of a fledgling band from Sheffield in the north of England making our first.
Record and in walks David Bowie, so you can imagine the effect of that.
But he was really cool.
He hung out and he kind of made a lot of suggestions for the record, and he seemed to like the atmosphere in the control room, you know, so it was great for him to sprinkle a bit of his magic stardust, his ziggy stardust onto the project. Yeah, it was a good omen and it came though well. I mean, I'm a fan as you can tell. But he came to a show, stood in the wings, watched the show, and nobody told me he was there because they knew.
If I knew, I would freak out. You know.
It wise to meet your heroes. Once I was in Los Angeles and I went to see Prince incredible show Prince put together I think it was. I think it was the Under the Cherry Moon tour and somebody said, you want to come backstage and I kind of, oh, I don't know, you know, I'm kind of I'm going to head back to the hotel. I've seen an incredible show. I don't know, is it wise to meet your heroes? And now I say yes, I wish I had them.
Yeah, And you know, back to Bowie there, I mean, what an unbelievable way for him to go out right with being so so Yeah, we so creatively inspired.
Bringing new music though, Yeah, yeah, very much so. And when I look, I mean when I read the book, I started to kind of reassess a lot of things about his career. His career was really haven't gone by today's standards. He was very popular, he's a big star, but he always kind of went down that original route. Originality was at the forefront of everything he did, right to the end, you know, with the band on Black Star, Yeah, that album. So yeah, he's a great I mean he affected a whole generation of my generation, and all the bands that came through when we started with ABC, like Duran, Duran and Depeche Mode and The Cure and New Order and all these bands were definitely influenced by the way Debbie Boyd put things together.
Yeah, definitely.
I Mean there's many artists out there. I love all sorts of music, but yeah, that's why he's on the way.
And I think what's also a really cool story, which I recently learned, was how Peter Frampton had had that part of his career that went kind of sour and Bowie said, well, you're going to come out on tour with me and you're going to kind of re establish yourself after going sour here and yeah, which I think was so and Frampton is so grateful for that obviously because it kind of helped resurrect his career.
Oh yeah, Peter Frampton's dad taught Bowie, didn't it art college?
I think that's what I read. Yeah, this book was very in depth.
You know. I was sitting at home listening to I was in my car listening to Walk on the wild Side, you reading. The sax solo comes on and I thought to myself, who played that?
Is it? A couple of session players from that time?
And in the book it tells me, you know, so it was to be, you know, when the universe is telling you something when you're in read your information arrives just after.
You've asked the question.
So it sound like you never And obviously Walk on the Wildside was a production David Bowie and Mick Ronson produced that one.
Yeah, so it sounds like you never had a Plan B in your career as a musician. Is that fear to say.
No Plan B? Yeah, I'm hitting sit.
I'm in my mid sixties now, and there's definitely no plan B. Yeah, it's you got to go right out on the ledge. Yeah, and hope that people like what you do. Yeah, that's the secret. You beat to your own rhythm.
Yeah.
You must be really excited to be back again co headlining there with the super awesome previous guest on taking a walk, Howard Jones.
Good.
I'm glad Howard's been sitting in this very seat chatting to you. Yeah.
I've known Howard for a long time, you know, from the nineteen eighties, and I ran into him, oh about ten years ago, and we were out there doing sort of TV shows in Germany and we're both being re establishing ourselves as a new wave legends, you know, after a long, illustrious career we both had. We were there, you know, getting respect from I don't know, all over the world. So it felt really good to kind of go on the road in August September last year, ABC and Howard Jones and the tour was a phenomenal success. So we're doing it again in different parts of America and head off to San Francisco next Thursday. Yeah, eighteen eighteen dates eighteen, and then we had over finish in Brooklyn and then across to Philadelphia.
Yeah, Philly.
The New Romantic movement, it was a huge influence Ovius and still is. How did you see ABC's role in that movement?
Well, the New Romantics never really took off in America, did they really. It was kind of a post for in Britain. It was a post punk thing because punk was massive less so in America in the late seventies, popular, but not as you know, it was a big cultural thing. So I'd say we were a bit post punk. We came out and things were getting very minimal, and there were loads of great, very art pop bands like Perubu and Joy Division and The Cure. Like I say, all these great bands. We do get described as New Romantic, but I think there were other bands that were more New Romantic than us.
Yeah.
We kind of came out in the early eighties wanting to make people dance. We wanted to fuse the two worlds of kind of the dance floor, and also the bands that were kind of very intellectual, I suppose and arty like Joy Division and The Cure and bands like that. And then we go out to clubs and listen to Sheic and sist of Sledge and earth Wind and Fire and all those great R and B tunes. So we definitely were all about fusing the two worlds together. And fortunately for us, there was a whole generation that we're coming through looking for an opportunity to get out and dance and socialize and hit the clubs. So throughout the eighties, the club scene was you know, it's pretty dramatic. Not in every city, but in a lot of cities. That was a big thing that was ticking away there for everybody, you know, from Madonna to Prince to Michael Jackson, they all benefit and Bruce Brankston, they all benefited from that sort of club life as well as the rock world.
Yeah.
So yeah, we came along and we wanted we were we wanted to write songs that were quite emotional and romantic.
So I guess that's where the new romantic thing comes in. Yeah, we're considered new wave in America.
Yeah, but would you say it was by coastal in America in terms of the popularity bases.
Yeah, I mean we'd had a an album in Britain and you know, everything was going our way. But we wanted to conquer America, you know, like the Pretenders did and the Police and Soft Cell at the time. So we flew in and I remember first show we played was in Phoenix on a Tuesday afternoon, our wet Tuesday in nineteen eighty two, and I stood there on stage in my shiny gold lame suit and my kind of diam antique tuxedo. We got the violins in the corner and I realized the audience is just not ready for us on a wet Tuesday night, you know. But fortunately when we hit New York, yeah there was you know. Andy Warhol came to the show and took us down to the factory. And when we hit LA I remember name dropping again. But Stevie Wonder came down. He'd heard the Look of Love on what he called his local station, and I just thought it was the one he listened to, but I think he owned it. Called k J LH Joy Love and Happiness, Kay Joy Love and Happiness. So it was a matter of weeks really where we played some very tough shows in the middle of America where we were completely unknown and confusing.
The audience put it that way.
And then we played the you know in California and in New York, and we realized there was an audience for us.
But of course, then MTV took off.
Cable TV was getting kind of increasing as we spoke, so people were picking up those cable TV subscriptions, and suddenly MTV was a big influence on the music. Sin yeah, kind of early eighties.
By the way, Stevie Wonder still owns that radio station. Sorry, yeah, yeah, cool, he does, yeah yeah. So what inspired you to write your autobiography at this at this point in your career.
Well, I mean a good I had a good point in my career where I can pick and choose really forty years on, it's wonderful. It's a privilege to get on stage and sing the Look of Love or when Smoky sings, and to really throw of energy into those shows. It just felt right. I've avoided writing any sort of memoir for a while, so I just figured it just felt like the right time. On a whim, but it's yeah, I kind of I wrote it, and then we brought in a lot of photographs. It was many a really big art book. It's not really that available in America. So the art book's about this big wrapped in gold lame mate. It's a bit of an art statement. And there's a smaller book that you can have shipped, but I'd like to get it distributed in America. Yeah, but it just felt right to share some of the adventures I've had, you know, in the world of like I'm doing with you now in this conversation.
Yeah, it did feel like You're writing style is different in terms of writing the autobiography than you're writing style for songs. And is there anybody that influenced your writing style for your autobiography?
You know, someone like Zady Smith or contemporary writers like that who can handle comedy, humor, pathos, Martin Amos, people like that, Saul Bellow. You know, there's loads of great writers, but memoirs tend to be I don't like them when the ghost written. To be honest with you, you know, there's a lot of guys in bands just having ghosts written. They start them on Tuesday and they finished on Thursday, you know, because you want to know where the bodies are buried, you know, that's the real thing deal. So I don't know, really, it just kind of it felt like a natural thing to write.
Yeah, yeah, it is kind of.
Nice to capture the flavor, but it's hard to capture how you felt in nineteen eighty four, you know, because it's a long time ago. I'm a different man now, obviously, all these years on. But in a way I'd already attempted that because I made an album called The Lexicon of Love Too, which came out in Europe around about twenty sixteen twenty seventeen, where I kind of I was so buzzing from watching the audience's reaction.
To the shows.
I realized that a lot of people had, you know, grown up with our songs, really got married to them, maybe got divorced to another set of tunes, re mortgaged, remarried, had kids, and life is really about the ups and the downs, you know.
So I wrote an.
Album called with tracks like Viva Love on it, called X kind Of Have Two, which kind of looked at the world through my eyes as an older man. So yeah, I kind of got used to looking at information how it was back then, but how you perceive it now.
It's kind of an interesting way of working. Yeah.
Had you been journaling all through the years.
Early on no laptops? Of course, so I did. Yeah, I'm a lyricist, so yeah, there's a lot of journals. And with the book there's a kind of I gave a lot of journals to the guy I was working with on the book, and he kind of condensed it. So there's some versions of songwriting journals. Yeah, and I realized then that they're pretty psychotic, really, but you eventually clamber up the side of the mountain and provide the song. You know, there's a lot of changes you go through, scribbling out different things. I don't really write many journals these days, but when I was a teenager, yeah, it was my only friend.
Yeah.
That's why I'm a lead singer. Yeah, that's why I've been chasing an audience ever since.
Yeah.
And what's the feeling like to this day when you're out performing and you're connecting with the audience and you could kind of see the absolute joy they have and seeing the performance.
Yeah, I mean our audience has changed developed. You know, there are, like I say, there are guys who were there from day one. There's a whole new generation coming through interested in Spotify. But when I do look out into the audience, I realized that music is a communal thing.
You know.
It's kind of in reggae talk about a sort of universal consciousness. But I realized that those records were hits that we had in the day because people celebrated them. You know, it made sense to them, the guys at the time. It meant something, you know what I mean. It captured a little bit of the moment and I never undervalue that. And to be able to stand on a stage in twenty twenty five and see an audience kind of you know, having a good time that is priceless.
Yeah, absolutely nothing like it. Yeah yeah.
So if we were to get a peek at your.
Spotify collection, okay, yeah, your playlist, what would be on there that would kind of intrigue us, surprise us or not?
I don't know.
I've been listening to a lot of Chill Out, so a lot of Air the French band, But I was listening to D'Angelo last night. Voodood' angelo is somebody who intrigues me. He only made three albums, second Ones called Voodoo, Third Ones, Black Messiah. But I like people that are complete artists, everybody from Joni Mitchell through to Prince.
D'Angelo.
Yeah, he's just every single record he made, and he's only made a few in a thirty year period, was incredible. Yeah, I've been listening to a lot of jazz. I don't know why I'm putting Spotify up. So moon sofar Ya and my life loved, My wife loves shade, and I'm sitting here in Barbados, so as twilight hits and the light comes down, it just feels right to put on your Love is King or something like that from Chardatt. Yeah, but I listened to a lot of different things. Really, what have I got hits, chill out classics, chill evening, and jazz classics. I think that's a bit of Frank Ocean in there.
Thanks for sharing that, and is that.
I don't know if that's surprising.
I'm not surprised.
When I was in New York last time, I kind of got it for some reason, and I am out by the ocean here, but.
I got into the yacht rock.
I kind of really went into the yacht rock phenomena because I didn't really quite understand it. And you know, I love Haul and Oates and Michael McDonald anyway, you know, I got into the whole that sort of period, a golden age for kind of Anglo Saxon writers back in the mid seventies. Yeah, that was a kind of interesting period. I love Steely Dan of course, you know. But I mean, anyway, stop me. I like a lot of music.
Yeah, I don't want to stop you, but I do think.
Actually I watched last night. I watched that documentary. I didn't think i'd like it about We Are the World?
Have you seen that.
Document Yeah, the Biggest Night and Pop or whatever that.
I thought it was fascinating, absolutely intriguing some of the things going on there in the room, the psychology of it and everything else, and it made it reminded me of a lot of the things I've done in the studio in the sense of the way people go about it and how vulnerable they are, you know, when the track when they're making a record. And I have to say it really really is an incredible documentary. Yeah, I thought it was just going to be a piece of eighties nostalgia or you know, record company speak, but it was kind of really cool. Yeah, really interesting. There was a lovely moment where I loved it. When Smokey Robinson turns around, he's got Stevie Wonder and you know, it's surreal. Michael Jackson, he said, what the hell does that line mean? You know, I forget which line it is. He says, you know, we've got to keep giving to the charity, and he kind of in just a phrase. Smokey Robinson, he sold the puzzle of the record. He made it make sense.
Do you know what I mean?
I love that those magic Smokey Robinson. Later in the interview, he said, well, that's how we treated each other at Motown. He's talking to you know, they are legends, but at the same time he's talking to guys like Stevie Wander, Michael Jackson, guys who they all came up together, you know, in the studios, and you're only as good as your next record, as everybody knows. So, yeah, it was phenomenal. There were so many great moments in that documentary. Yeah.
I was very surprised, very surprised.
I love the Bob Dylan parts, by the way.
Yeah, yeah, the Bob Dylan they saved to the end and you thought Dylan was going.
To blow it didn't you because he's he's he's.
Kind, it's five in the morning, six in the morning, and then he just in four lines, he just sums up.
Why is it great? You know?
It's singing For me watching that documentary, it was about singing, how everybody approaches singing in different ways, very different ways.
Yeah.
I do listen to a lot of Dylan too. I don't know why. I'm looking forward to seeing the film as well, the biopic.
Yeah.
Well, as you experiment with genres throughout your career, is there a genre that you haven't experimented with that you'd like to.
Yeah, You've got to be tricky with the genres now because a lot of it's appropriation. You know, sometimes I listen to a bit of Edsheer and I think, yeah, you know, you've heard a couple of Afro pop tunes and you've kind of thrown it in that its a good effect, not you know, millions and millions of people love that.
No, these days, when I write a song.
I go for the heart of it, to see what it's all about, the kind of rather than saying, right, you know, let's be let's go reggae or you know, let's go Flamenco. But I mean inevitably, when you listen to music, it just seeps in, doesn't it. It always has done. That's how all different types of music is created. Yeah, so I don't know. No, I'm an older statesman of pop now, so the next stuff I do is just going to be classic ABC.
Yeah.
I've been down a few blind alleys and different twists and turns artistically through the earth. So it's kind of nice to know what I like.
Yeah, I want to close with something that I so admire about you. It's been your your transparency about you know, health challenges and you know battles. Yeah, and we produce this other podcast it's called Music Save Me, which talks about sort of the powers of music. Yeah, and so first of all, how are you able to be so transparent about those challenges? And then do you believe that music has healing powers?
Well, yeah, it's funny when you say music saves me. I had a fancy called Modern Drugs, and it was all about the music and all about the bands i'd go and see in the late seventies. You know, I was just a kid, but I realized then, and I realized much later that music's a therapy.
Music is the medium.
It's the kind of paintbrush on the art. But it's like also, it's like medicine. Yeah, as you say medicine. When I was twenty seven, many years ago, I was diagnosed with the Hodgkin's disease of lymphona cancer and I had to have chemotherapy and radio therapy and some operations and stuff, and it kind of hit me at a time when I was kind of top of the charts, you know. It kind of brought me back down to earth with a violent shadow. And I talk to you now about it because not as a spokesperson for cancer or anything like that, that would be arrogant, because I realized that you walk into any bar and there's maybe three or four people or more who've been touched by a cancer in their family or friends or their immediate group of prooblem So it's tough for me as a young man having to face up to that. And I've fully recovered through the treatment I had at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London and up in Sheffield at the Hallamshire Hospital. But yeah, and at the time I went back to my seven inch vinyl collection I'd come in from the hospital treatments and that's where a song called when Smokey Sings came from, which was a very big hit for us. But it's about that feeling of euphoria you get when you hear a great piece of music or great artist you love, and how it can just take you away from your troubles. You pack up your troubles and they all kip that. But I don't know to answer your question. For a long time, I would I mean, I went underground.
There's a what happens is you think of it as a curse.
Oh man, I got ill, and then you kind of think you feel guilty because you're letting people down and stuff part of the thought process. But as you recover and you get fit, you realize it is a blessing and you're here to cherish every day, you know. But it was good to come out the other side and recover, you know, get a chick in the box after a year, after five years, after ten years at the hospital. But back then, yeah, I didn't want to tell anyone really well. It was hard, very hard, because in the music business you're like a pedigree race horse, you know, and as soon as the label found out that I wasn't fully fit, They'd come around to my house and see what, you know, look at my teeth, see if I could still jump the hurdles for them. Put me on me and Mark White on a like a monthly wage, and see what's happened. Because nobody knew what was around the corner. And that stuff is really hard to deal with. He's taking me years to deal with that. I was pissed off about it, but now I realized everything was a blessing.
Yeah, it really was.
And now I realize even though there's a lot of opportunities that I couldn't take up. You know, one minute I'm doing soul training in America and the next Tina Turner saying come on the road with us.
Couldn't do it. I couldn't do this.
To tour with Tina Turner because it was I just had too much hospital treatment. Now I realize that's why I can climb on a stage and really deliver a show in twenty twenty five. Yeah, I'm catching up.
I love it.
I love it.
However, nothing that's forever, does it. I mean, I'm getting you know, but as soon as you know, you can't deliver a killer show.
You stop. Yeah, definitely, So whilst it's wils I can sing. I'll sing keep delivering killer shows.
On the twenty twenty five tour with mister Howard Jones. Yeah, and it's so tremendous. And congrats on the lexicon of life.
Yeah, yes, cool, the lexicon of Thanks you very much, but thank you.
I enjoyed talking to you and taking a walk. Thank you, my friend.
I shall say lout to Howard when I see him next week. Please do say please do it? Yeah cool, Thank you Martin.
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