As a child he sang a lot and at the age of ten he got a guitar. And then for the first time ever I decided to not mix it straight away. I always go forward and I forget the process that I go through to get there. He has lots of it! His profound blends of some of the most harmonious and expressive sounds, have not only helped establish him as a player with a unique charismatic edge, and one of unprecedented musical sophistication, but have also brought a somewhat striking shade to the colourful threads that were interwoven to form the music of Ultravox.The news regarding the new Ultravox album only became public knowledge in January 2011 and was a tremendous surprise for fans – when did a new Ultravox record become a very real possibility for the four of you?Was it love at first sight with the ARP Odyssey? I mean I’m lucky because I’ve got a bit of an up from people who may have known me from the past. Then there’s ‘Glibberig’, that’s a Dutch word actually…I felt this one was more of an album than any I’ve written actually. And so then we move onto to ‘In Full Cry’. This show features many of the group's landmark songs, including "All Stood Still," "Thin Wall," "The Voice," "Vienna," and "Reap The Wild Wind." That could have been difficult.I actually can’t! Just something light and funny and cute for a change. The band put such a great rhythm to it that I had to take my average idea off and do something better. I’m not being coy or lacking confidence. So it was all comfortable, and we could hear ourselves think, and chat. I could have five or six different synths linked together to get one sound. So when I went into mix, I wasn’t so intense and I kind of had a more relaxed view of it.It’s not really. With a serious musical background, he was once offered a place at London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Music back in 1969.New music is something you seem to have set your sights on fairly early on, picking up from previous interviews since the live reunion?Are you able to tell us on how many tracks the Odyssey appears on the new album?Bristol Colston Hall (21st September), Oxford New Theatre (22nd September), Portsmouth Guildhall (23rd September), Nottingham Royal Concert Hall (25th September), Birmingham Symphony Hall (26th September), London Hammersmith Apollo (27th September), Guildford G-Live (29th September), Manchester Palace Theatre (30th September), Southend Cliffs Pavillion (2nd October), Ipswich Regent (3rd October), Sheffield City Hall (4th October), Blackpool Opera House (6th October), Glasgow Clyde Audiotorium (7th October), Gateshead The Sage (8th October)You are a classically trained pianist. My bowing with the right arm, which really should be the leader and creator, lagged behind a bit in power. I use violin and viola on the album though. It was the only other synth that had a totally polyphonic touch-sensitive keyboard. It’s an ambient sort of track. That track is kind of slidey and a bit slippery. It’s a bit of a difficult one.Oh no, I don’t use analog synths. The Minimoog was all knobs, it did not seem as agile.
So that’s just an example of a difficulty of producing yourself.Well, we just went our separate ways again. ‘Cause it features the viola!
I just decided to go in a different direction. We mixed it together. Sometimes you come up with something that’s a bit too literally like the sound, and that can be a bit uninspiring. He responded very well to the mid-tempo tracks. That’s what I used to like about going on stage, when you can really create a shiver up everyone’s back.
BILLY CURRIE (ULTRAVOX) INTERVIEW [2016] thefanbase 2016-06-13T14:54:58+00:00. That could very well be an influence from writing with Ultravox. Midge started with that strong melody, Chris’ bass was also a very strong feature. Quite a few different synthesisers and string machines, I can’t remember them all off the top of my head without plugging into my Logic…The last one is ‘Stymie’ that’s just a stop, getting in the way of people. Like Michael Tippett which has got that real English feel. Emotional, but intense, overly intense.What I’ve used is a synthesiser, my piano is the Synthology Ivory Piano and I’m quite into synthesisers from Omnisphere, I’ve used the Oddity 2 quite a lot, I have a development unit of that from G-Force. A few 2nd inversions though. The album will be released realistically early next year.Violin is your first instrument and you are a left-hander that learned to play right-handed (violin/viola). You came, eventually, to a sound, used it and never got it back again quite the same way. After one listen of Brilliant, I find myself wanting to listen again and again, which is a testament to the music. It’s like “I’m releasing my record, my album next week – along with another 500,000 peole” but the important thing is that it’s there and I’m still getting it out. The education was a preparation to become an orchestral player, learning viola with piano as his second instrument and also studying composition and harmony.