Glenn Gregory, an English singer, song writer and multi-instrumentalist with Heaven 17 chats with Kevin Cooper about a new Heaven 17 album, meeting David Bowie, Afterhere’s latest album Addict, and next year’s Holy Holy Tour.

Glenn Gregory is an English singer, song writer, and multi-instrumentalist whose music career spans more than 30 years. He came to prominence in the early 1980s as co-founder and lead singer of the new wave and synth pop band Heaven 17.

The band released eight studio albums, but by the late 1980s their popularity had declined and they broke up in 1988, but reunited in 1996, and played their first ever live concert in 1997. Marsh left the band in 2007, but Ware and Gregory continue to perform as Heaven 17.

Outside of Heaven 17, Gregory has been a member of the bands Ugly and Honeyroot. He has also established a career in soundtrack music, writing for radio, TV and film. He creates scores in a private studio built at the bottom of his garden.

He is also a member of Afterhere, a duo formed with Berenice Scott. They have provided the music for the big budget ITV drama, Vanity Fair. Scott also plays keyboards with Heaven 17 and also tours with Holy Holy, a super group who perform the songs of David Bowie from 1969 to 1973.

Whilst busy learning the songs from Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World and The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, he took some time out to have a chat with Kevin Cooper and this is what he had to say.

Glenn good morning, how are you today?

Good morning Kevin I’m very well thank you, how are you?

I’m very well thank you and firstly let me thank you for taking the time to speak to me today.

Not at all, it really is an absolute pleasure speaking to you once again.

And just how is life treating you at this moment in time?

Life at the moment is extremely busy but I would rather it be that way than me sitting at home twiddling my fingers (laughter). The devil, idle hands and all of that (laughter).

Well you and I last spoke on 5^th April when you were busy getting yourself in shape for the forthcoming 35th Anniversary Tour of The Luxury Gap (laughter). How are things going, are you still doing lots of singing alone in the car?

(Laughter) absolutely. I am so fed-up with the whole situation as I have never done so much bloody singing in my life (laughter). As you know there will be a Heaven 17 tour at the end of this year and then we have got the Holy Holy tour coming up in late January early February so as you can imagine it’s all about balls in the air at the moment (laughter). I recently looked at all of the advertising for that tour which is all over the website and it said ‘Ziggy Stardust and The Man Who Sold The World’ and I was like ‘what, both albums’ (laughter). I called up the tour manager and said “has the tour advertising been printed wrong” and he replied “oh no, that’s what Woody (Woodmansey) and Tony (Visconti) want to do” (laughter). I just thought ‘Jesus Christ’ (laughter).

So you have finally seen that it is both albums but if you look closely and carefully at the small print it also says ‘other selected tracks’ (laughter).

(Laughter) yes, exactly. I think that gig is going to be over two and a half hours long.

You should always remember to read the small print (laughter).

(Laughter) yes, exactly.

I was going to ask you about the tour later but as you have brought it up let me firstly ask you just how did your involvement in Holy Holy come about?

It was just one of those right place right time moments I think to be honest. I had been working on an album called International Blue with a guy called Stephen Emmer who is a Dutch artist. I had written and sung four songs on that album, and it had different artists on it and Tony Visconti was producing it down at the Abbey Road studios. So I was working with Tony at that time on that project and one day he said to me “do you know Glenn that sometimes when I am mixing your voice you really do sound like David (Bowie)”. That really was amazing and I was like “oh thank you Tony” (laughter). Then a week later after that actual day in the studio, Woody had contacted Tony asking him if he would be interested in joining him in his latest project The Man Who Sold The World live on stage.

At that moment in time that particular Bowie album had never been performed in its entirety live on stage. It had always been under the shadow of Ziggy Stardust so they had performed some of the songs from that album but they had never performed the whole album. Tony admitted that he would be really interested in doing it so he met Woody here in the UK to discuss who they could chose to sing it. Because Tony had been working with me on my voice and it had somehow clicked in his head that I somehow reminded him of David, he just suggested me and Woody said “yes that might be interesting, that could work” so I got the call from Tony asking me if I was interested in singing The Man Who Sold The World.

I was confused at the time because I thought that he was talking about just that song at some sort of celebrity gig somewhere (laughter). So I said to him “is there anything else that you would like me to learn and sing” and it was at that point that he said to me “no, I want you to sing the whole album and maybe a few other of David’s songs from around that time” (laughter). All of this was happening on my birthday; I had just picked up my little boy and we were walking home from school and I just said “wow that really is a fantastic birthday present mate. Yes I would really love to do that” (laughter). So it really was a case of me being in the right place at the right time. Joking apart, I feel really honoured to have been asked to do it.

I personally feel that Tony Visconti’s pedigree is as good as it gets regarding David Bowie and he could have pretty much have asked anybody I think and he would have got a yes. So I really am very honoured to have been asked to be a part of it and to be singing it. I have to be honest and say that it is a slightly dangerous area because there will always be someone out there who will say that it is just a tribute act but it really isn’t that at all. It is Woody Woodmansey who is the last surviving member of The Spiders From Mars and Tony Visconti who played bass on The Man Who Sold The World album and who also produced a hell of a lot of albums for David. It really is part of the band, and it feels really good.

Did you know that the name Holy Holy comes from the B-side to the single Diamond Dogs which was released in January 1971?

Wow was it really Diamond Dogs, ah right well you have taught me something this morning. I had no idea.

It was later put onto subsequent album and CD releases as a bonus track. A track that is not as well-known as a lot of other material from David wouldn’t you agree?

Yes I would, it really isn’t that well known at all. I find it to be a weird little song. We have played it live a couple of times but we have dropped it since. So that is where the name came from is it, well I have to say that I do quite like the name actually; it kind of works.

Knowing that you and I would be speaking, I have recently been playing the two albums in question and I have to be honest and say that, in my opinion, The Man Who Sold The World wasn’t David’s best work was it, having been totally overlooked by the majority of the media?

Yes, I totally agree with you on that and it ought to have been, because what you have to remember is that Ziggy Stardust came out almost immediately after The Man Who Sold The World. Space Oddity had already been a hit and so everything seemed to get waylaid. To be honest with you I have always loved that album I really have. I bought a copy when I was fifteen years old and totally loved it. It was a lot heavier than David’s previous albums and in fact, it was almost art meets progressive rock in places. It is great to sing live actually, I mean The Width Of A Circle, what an opening track with that guitar. It is almost ten minutes long and it is just gorgeous although it does leave me somewhat breathless (laughter).

You have briefly touched on it but the good thing to come out of The Man Who Sold The World was the fact that David had by then got the nucleus of The Spiders From Mars together. He had got Woody and Mick Ronson playing on there. At that stage things were changing.

Yes they were, most definitely. He was already moving towards losing his alter ego through his music and the band so yes, it was all starting. Whenever I speak to Woody and Tony about those times with David it sounds as though it was such a laugh. They tell me that they really were great times. Woody tells this really fantastic story in his very own Hull accent about the time that they were in the studio recording Ziggy Stardust in a residential studio somewhere (laughter). They were all working and then Mick Ronson came in and said “I am going to walk into town Woody, do you want to come” and Woody said “yes why not. Are you wearing eye make-up?” to which Ronson replied “yes I am” and Woody said “okay I will go and put mine on” (laughter). And then the two of them went off to the local butchers for some meat (laughter).

(Laughter) that simply doesn’t happen anymore does it?

No it’s sad to say but those days have well and truly disappeared.

David’s next album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars really did catapult him to the next level.

Oh yes, totally and completely. That really is David’s seminal album. At the same time his costumes became more and more bizarre and outrageous. It all started to come into focus from that point.

A lot of people say that The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars is the most influential album of the 1970s and I think that you and I would agree on that point.

Yes it is. I personally think that it is one of the most influential albums of all times not just the 1970s. The only other albums that I can think managed to come even close to The Rise And Fall are Roxy Music (1972) and For Your Pleasure (1973) the very first two Roxy Music albums. To me those two albums touched a similar nerve. All three of those were really fantastic albums.

I think that I was fortunate, if you can call it that, to actually see the best and worst of David Bowie. I saw his Serious Moonlight Tour back in 1983 at the Milton Keynes National Bowl which, as everyone knows, was absolutely fantastic. However, I then saw his Glass Spider Tour at Wembley Stadium in 1987 and all that I can say is, what a bloody train crash that was (laughter). David was later reported to have said that the Glass Spider Tour was the worst thing that he had ever done and that he took great delight in setting fire to the spider in a field in New Zealand after the tour had finished.

Well I didn’t manage to see the Glass Spider tour which thinking about it was probably for the best. However, I did subsequently read just how bad it really was. The Serious Moonlight tour however, in my opinion, took David to yet another level.

What can we expect from the show; what format will it take?

You know what; it’s really a kind of old school rocking rock show. You have got two great guitarists in James Stevenson and Paul Cuddeford; they both love Mick Ronson so he has really influenced both of them. James and Paul play Mick’s parts together fantastically. Then you have got Woody Woodmansey on drums who still hits those skins harder than anyone else that I have ever met. And I have to tell you that Tony’s bass playing is exceptional. What else Tony does is very similar to the stories that you hear about the late James Brown, who when anyone played a note wrong he would just look at them and dock their wages immediately (laughter).

There is always that kind of thing going on whenever we go out onto the stage which means that everyone is so going to get it right (laughter). It’s loud, it’s real and it is just proper. I come off the stage and I am simply done, I really am. The shows are sometimes over two hours, this one is most probably going to be even a bit longer (laughter). Everybody gives their all. There is so much love from the audience because you are playing songs that they have loved and grown up with or have recently discovered. There is a lot of youth in there as well; it is not all people of a certain age.

We all know that Bowie’s influence goes far and wide. My son is only fifteen but he could probably sing all of the songs that I sing. He knows them all as well. So there are all of these people and whenever I look at their faces you feel buoyed by it all. It is so exciting. I would say in a sentence that the show is old school rock and roll. It is a 1970s rock show. At the moment I am running between five and ten miles every day because that is how I learn the lyrics; I put just one song on my iPod, have it on repeat and I just go. So usually I am out there for around two and a half hours first thing every morning singing; that’s how I get the songs into my head.

That reminds me of the old Tommy Cooper joke, he said that he runs ten miles every day and by the end of the week he is seventy miles away from home (laughter).

(Hysterical laughter) very good (laughter). Have you managed to see the show yet?

No not yet, but I am hoping to see you in Birmingham on February 13^th next year.

Honestly you will love it. You really will not be disappointed. The sound is fantastic, and it is just a really good, entertaining show. I promise you that you will get a really great gig if you manage to come along and see the show.

I know that you met David on several occasions. Would you say that you managed to get to know the real David Bowie, David the family man?

No, I didn’t really know David that well at all. I knew a lot of the people who were around him, and I did manage to meet him a couple of times but you have to remember that when he wasn’t recording or performing, David really was a very private man. He wasn’t the sort of person who would share that side of his life with everyone. The very first time that I met him, it was in a tiny pub in West London. It was a typical rock and roll pub, a really scruffy place it has to be said and the original Human League were playing and I was there with them. I was backstage in the dressing room and somebody rushed into the dressing room and said “David Bowie’s here” and there was a really weird buzz around the place.

I just said “oh don’t be silly, David Bowie’s not here in this dodgy little pub in West London” (laughter). However, low and behold he was, he had come to see The Human League. Just before the end of the last number I was sitting on my own in the dressing room when the door flew open and in runs David who grabbed me by the shoulders shouting “they are fucking brilliant, they are the fucking future of music, they are amazing” (laughter). I just looked up at him and said “yes David” (laughter). When the band came off stage we all spent close to three hours in that dressing room and it’s amazing to think that after all of that time I will be standing on stage singing many of David’s songs.

I do feel really genuinely honoured because for me David was part of my growing up as well. Having said all of that I am not trying to sound like David or be like David, I am just doing it as me. However, David really did influence me in the way that I perform and sing in many ways. I don’t try to sound like him at all; I just do it in the way that I do it.

It goes without saying that David has been a massive loss and whenever I look around I simply cannot see anyone stepping up to the plate and replacing him can you?

No I can’t really. Even throughout the time that he was here I don’t think that there was ever anybody that could hold a light to him really. He really was a pretty unique character.

And for him to go out in the manner in which he did was typical David Bowie.

(Laughter) yes, absolutely. For him to have released that album whilst going through what he was going through, it has to be said that it really was amazing. For the album to do so well and then for him to simply go, it was like ‘wow what a way to go’.

Moving on and coming right up to date, you and Berenice (Scott) have released a new album under the name Afterhere.

Yes we have and as you rightly say it is Berenice Scott and me under the name of Afterhere. As you know Berenice plays the keyboards in Holy Holy and Heaven 17 but we also work together writing and recording film soundtracks and TV scores under the name Afterhere. I think, to be honest, that Berenice and I have spent more time together in the last five years than we both have with our respective partners (laughter) with all of the touring together with all of the work that we have done. The album is called Addict and I have to say that it is beautiful. It is mainly Berenice singing, although I do sing on a couple of tracks.

It is a collection of songs that we have put together over a couple of years whilst we have been working together in the studio. There is a new adaptation of Vanity Fair which has been made by Amazon in collaboration with ITV which really is a blockbuster with a worldwide release date. It has got everybody in it, and they have used one of the songs from the album called All Along The Watchtower and they are using that for the whole series. It will be heard for two and a half minutes at the start of every episode. And I have to say that I feel that it works really well, this really weird version of All Along The Watchtower out there amongst all of the bonnets and frocks (laughter). It really does work so well.

Obviously depending upon the reaction to the album, do you have any thoughts on touring it?

It’s a nice album with some tremendous songs so yes, I really would love to tour it.

I have to ask you, is there anything in the pipeline in relation to a new Heaven 17 studio album?

(Laughter) that is very good timing; we did actually have a meeting with the record label yesterday. So yes, it is looking like it might well happen.

And if it does happen, what time period are you looking at?

It will most probably be late next year if it is going to happen with this particular label. We were talking about that as well yesterday.

On that note Glenn let me once again thank you for talking the time to speak to me today. Good luck with everything that you are currently doing and I hope to see you soon.

Thanks’ Kevin it’s been a pleasure as always. It’s nice to be fit and working on it, it’s good fun. You take care and I will see you in Birmingham.

Glenn Gregory, songwriter and singer with Heaven 17 chats with Kevin Cooper about using a forged Student Union card to get into The Students Union to see David Bowie, writing music for TV and film with Berenice Scott, touring with Claudia Brückenand and Suzanne Freytag of Propaganda and Heaven 17’s forthcoming tour of the UK to celebrate the 35th anniversary of The Luxury Gap.

Glenn Gregory is an English singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist whose music career spans more than 30 years. He came to prominence in the early 1980s as co-founder and lead singer of the new wave and synth pop band Heaven 17.

Gregory has been playing bass guitar and singing with Ian Craig Marsh since 1973 who was a member of The Human League along with Martyn Ware. After the split from the Human League in early 1981, Gregory was contacted by Ware and was asked to join Heaven 17 as the lead singer. The band released eight studio albums and released six singles which entered the top 40 charts in the UK during the 80s and 90s, including Temptation, Come Live With Me, Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry, Sunset Now, This Is Mine, and (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang.

However, by the late 80s their popularity had declined and the band broke up in 1988, but reunited in 1996, and played their first ever live concert in 1997. Craig Marsh left the band in 2007, but Ware and Gregory continue to perform as Heaven 17.

Whilst getting ready to start rehearsals for their forthcoming tour, Glenn Gregory took some time out to have a chat with Kevin Cooper and this is what he had to say.

Glenn good morning, how are you?

I’m fine thank you Kevin, how are you?

I’m very well thank you and before we move on let me thank you for taking the time to speak to me today.

That’s alright mate, it’s a pleasure.

And just how is life treating you at this moment in time?

Life at the moment is not too bad. I have been really busy but I would much rather be busy than not busy (laughter).

You and I last spoke prior to the 35^th Anniversary Tour of Penthouse And Pavement so I have to ask, how did it go and did you enjoy it?

Oh it was great actually. We had a really good time. The Luxury Gap was our most successful album and a lot of our best-known songs are really from that album and I love performing those. We do quite a lot of them a lot of the time but Penthouse And Pavement has got some really strange songs on it (laughter). Things like Song With No Name, which we don’t very often play so yes, I enjoyed doing them all really.

And here we are again, speaking about the 35^th Anniversary Tour of The Luxury Gap (laughter).

(Hysterical laughter) I know, we really are going to have to stop meeting like this (laughter).

Well I have to say that I have listened to the album once again today and, in my opinion, I feel that the album sounds as fresh today as it did thirty-five years ago. Would you agree with that?

Do you really, well that is so very nice to hear so thank you for that. However, after our previous discussion this will most probably shock you but yes I do totally agree with you. I most probably said to you the last time that we spoke that because Penthouse And Pavement was the first album, it is kind of like the first baby. It was all written up in Sheffield, everything felt kind of close, and so I guess that in my heart Penthouse And Pavement is my favourite. However, having said all of that, I probably prefer the songs on The Luxury Gap.

What you did say about Penthouse And Pavement was that listening back to it now, you felt that you had tried and used every available keyboard on the album (laughter).

(Hysterical laughter) I tell you what, there are some keyboards that I wouldn’t mind having back from that album.

Really?

Actually having said that, Martin (Ware) has most probably still got most of them somewhere in his studio. He has still got the really early synthesisers that we used back in the day.

Being totally honest, do you feel that both Penthouse And Pavement and The Luxury Gap have really stood the test of time and that they do actually sound as good now as they did thirty-five years ago?

I think so yes, undoubtedly. I honestly think that, really genuinely, they sound better than a lot of albums that are released now to be honest. There is something about the recording technique of that time, and there is something about recording onto tape, and there is something about the equipment that was used, certainly for The Luxury Gap we were using an orchestra and I feel that album was really beautifully recorded. Gregg Walsh, who co-produced it with us, is an absolute stickler for technique, and would often microscopically discover the exact snare drum sound that he wanted; it would take forever.

However, looking back on it the album has stood the test of time and it was well worth spending certainly all of that time and all of that money making such a pretty good album. Honestly, I really genuinely believe that it has absolutely stood up to the test of time.

You have already mentioned that The Luxury Gap is your best-selling album to date, peaking at number four on the UK Albums Chart and certified platinum having sold in excess of 300,000 copies. That must have pleased you at the time?

(Laughter) oh god yes, it’s amazing. For us to top Penthouse And Pavement was a real achievement. All of those songs came out of the split with The Human League and Martyn (Ware) Ian (Craig Marsh) and I wanted to make a very different album to that simply because we didn’t want to make the same music that The Human League were making. We decided to make The Luxury Gap more pop accessible and began writing songs in that way. So for us to have the success that we did with the album meant that we had succeeded and to be honest, that was about as good as it gets really.

Let’s be honest, with the current UK charts being as they are together with the state of the British record industry, who the hell is going to get close to selling 300,000 units of anything, let alone an album (laughter)?

(Laughter) I know what you are saying. I must admit that it is a little lacklustre the amount of records that you have to sell in order to achieve a platinum album nowadays (laughter).

I did hear somewhere that it’s around fifty-five copies isn’t it (laughter)?

No its not, I think that it is actually fifty-nine (laughter).

Having played the album again today it reminded me of just how much I loved Who’ll Stop The Rain; I think that is a fantastic track.

I agree with you, it is a good track and I have to say that sadly, we don’t play that track very often live. Having said that it is one of those tracks that whenever we do perform it, I always think ‘I love singing that track’ despite it being quite complex vocally. Because we have got the girls who sing with us, together with Martyn, It really does kind of work especially with that five part harmony. So yes, it does work really well. It is very nice to sing although it is rather difficult.

Do you have a favourite track on the album?

If you pushed me for one then I would have to say Let Me Go. I think actually that is my favourite Heaven 17 song mainly for the reason that when we wrote it, well let me put it this way, you know when you write something, or you have got something in your head, I think that Let Me Go is the nearest to what was in our heads that came out and was finished. That’s the nearest that we have ever got to how we wanted it to be. Quite a lot of the time you write things and they change, in fact they change quite a lot along the way. You love what you have done but you think ‘one day I might go back and have another look at that because it wasn’t quite how I imagined it’ (laughter). But Let Me Go is one of those ones that was absolutely as we wanted it.

You mention the girls, for the forthcoming tour you have got Claudia Brückenand and Suzanne Freytag formerly of Propaganda performing with you. Now that will be something really special.

I am so looking forward to that because I love the album A Secret Wish; I really honestly do love that album. It’s the first Propaganda album and I have to say that it is up there with The Luxury Gap really. When we first started talking about it with Claudia, I was thinking ‘oh man if this could come off then I would go and pay to see that concert’ (laughter). The Luxury Gap and A Secret Wish are the two albums that I want to go and see (laughter). It is fantastic; it is a really great double bill.

Have you started listening to the album as yet in order to get yourself ready for the tour?

(Laughter) no, I haven’t as yet but I have put it in the car, because that is where I do most of my learning when I am driving around and obviously I am going to have to do that (laughter). There are tracks on the album that we don’t normally perform live so I am going to have to go in and re-learn them and like most Heaven 17 songs they are quite wordy (laughter). When we wrote the songs thirty-five years ago we weren’t even playing live or had any idea of what we were doing and most certainly had no real intentions of learning them and going out playing them live; it was all studio work (laughter). Having said all of that, we did well I think, and you have to remember that we did tour this album a while ago now, but we did it then with a full band.

However, I have to be honest and say that we have never done it in the way that the album was both conceived and written. We have never performed it with just the synthesisers and played it in the way that we wanted to. So I am really looking forward to that. I think that by doing it in that fashion, the people with feel the warmth of the songs and appreciate just how we wanted the album to sound like.

I can tell that you are already looking forward to the tour so I am not even going to ask you (laughter).

Yes I am, I am really looking forward to both the tour and also playing the album live (laughter). However, one day I would quite like to get out of the habit of doing it when it is bloody freezing (laughter). What’s wrong with touring in August and not bloody November? Why have we got ourselves into touring in November (laughter). Who the hell is responsible for getting us out on the road when it is bloody freezing cold (hysterical laughter).

When will you be starting rehearsals?

I will be rehearsing a lot here on my own in my home studio. Vocally I do that a lot. I will literally sing the entire set, perhaps once a week and then as the tour gets nearer, I will actually be singing it once a day. That’s not so much so that I remember the songs, it’s to get my voice used to going out on the road singing for two hours a day. What you don’t want is to go out there, blare it out and the next day find that you can’t do it (laughter). So it’s more like muscle training really.

You will be playing the album in its entirety. Will that be in chronological order?

Yes, I think that we will be playing it in order although that is under a bit of discussion at the moment (laughter). I personally am not one for performing an album in order but it seems that everyone else is saying that is what we should do. So it looks like we will be playing it in order, which is okay I guess (laughter).

I have to mention the fact that the original album was only thirty-seven minutes long….

Yes it was, so it is going to be a short gig then isn’t it (laughter). We will all be back home for the football (laughter).

(Laughter) so what will you be playing after that, a mini Heaven 17 greatest hits set perhaps?

Yes we will. We can’t do a gig without playing the likes of (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang. There are some good songs in there as well from previous albums so yes, we will be playing some different tracks. We may also play a few songs that we have never played live before and perhaps even a few that we haven’t performed for a good few years now. We always try to make the set list as interesting for fans as we can, trying to make sure that they don’t get the same thing all of the time.

The last time that we spoke you mentioned that you were working on new material for a new Heaven 17 studio album. How far along are you with that?

I would have to say that we are now probably half way with a few finished songs. Unfortunately it’s the same old problem, Martyn is always busy, I am always busy, and really to get the two of us in that studio and for us to spend time doing that is to be honest proving very difficult. But, having said that, what has come out is very interesting; the tracks are really good so yes, it will happen.

If you had to choose just one, what would you say has been the highlight of your career so far?

One of the things that always sticks in my mind even though it was a really long time ago now, and I guess that it is a highlight although at the time I was petrified, it was being on stage with Tina Turner when we did Let’s Stay Together on The Tube. I was absolutely really very, very frightened about getting up there on stage with the female dancers which just isn’t me, I’m not normally a nervous person (laughter). If you find that clip on YouTube and take a look at my face I look like a condemned man as I was literally scared to death (laughter). Having said that it has always been up there as one of my all-time highlights.

You most probably won’t remember this but I was fortunate enough to speak to Al Green and when I mentioned Let’s Stay Together he actually said that he thought that Tina’s version was in fact better than his.

I do remember that very well, how could you not remember something as fantastic as that (laughter). How amazing is that, it’s awesome.

There must have been some low points?

Yes there have been a few low points over the years but in all honesty there has been nothing unsurmountable. There has been nothing that has ever held me back. To be honest with you, one of the low points was when I buggered my knee up. I had to have the kneecap off and messed around with, and it really wasn’t a good time for me. It happened just at the time that we had released Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry. Everybody loved the song and we were scheduled to appear on Top Of The Pops. I told Martyn that I didn’t think that I would be able to do Top Of The Pops as I was in hospital (laughter).

Everyone kept telling me that we really should try and that perhaps I could perform the song whilst sitting down. So me being me, I went along to the Top Of The Pops studio to do it but the problem was that I kept fainting. I really couldn’t do it and I remember that I kept thinking ‘everyone loves this track and I can’t even perform it on Top Of The Pops’. We actually had to pull-out of two TV shows and I really did feel low at that point. Why couldn’t I pick a better time to bugger my knee up (laughter).

On the subject of Top Of The Pops what are your memories of your very first appearance on the show?

The first time that we appeared on the show was to promote Play To Win and I have to say that it was a little strained and it was a little strange (laughter). I actually thought that the powers that be treated the members of the audience rather quite badly to be honest. Obviously with hindsight they had to do that to make them work within the time restraints but at times they were pushing them around like cattle (laughter). I did at one point stop our performance and shout out “just what the hell are doing, you can’t treat people like that” (laughter). Having said all of that, and having grown up in the period that we did, Top Of The Pops was pretty much the pinnacle TV show that you could appear on. So that really does have to be up there with the highpoints.

Despite all of the recent bad press which has rightly or wrongly been levelled against Top Of The Pops, which we won’t go into, the actual TV programme is sorely missed. The British music industry really does need something like that on the screens now.

Yes it does, I know exactly what you mean when you say that but if I am being honest then I’m not sure that I would watch it (laughter). But what a great show in its time. However, I personally think that we would be far better off with a newer version of The Old Grey Whistle Test. Something that looks a little harder and is a little more interesting.

Testing your memory now, what was the first record that you bought?

Do you know what, I honestly think that was one of those Top Of The Pops compilation albums where the songs were not recorded by the original artists, I am sorry to say (laughter). In all honesty, that is what it really was I’m sorry to say (laughter).

We laugh about those albums but I actually bought a few back in the day (laughter). That is where Tina Charles first started to make her way within the music business, isn’t it (laughter).

I don’t know, is it really?

Yes it is, Tina would have been one of the ladies that you and I were listening to. She would have been singing Middle Of The Road’s Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep (laughter).

(Hysterical laughter) that was actually on there; that was on that album (laughter).

In that case you were actually listening to a very young Tina Charles.

Well you have certainly broadened my knowledge and education today it has to be said (laughter).

Who did you first see performing live in concert?

Oh god, now who would that have been, do you know what, it might well have been (David) Bowie in his very early years. He played at the Students Union in Sheffield and let me tell you we weren’t students but we forged some Student Union cards which actually did get us into the gig. I think that I was only fifteen at the time. So that would have been one of the very early gigs that I managed to get to see. After that I saw some fucking great bands at the Sheffield City Hall, the likes of Roxy Music, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Marc Bolan and even Gary Glitter, who we won’t mention (laughter). I really did have some great times back then.

What was the last song or piece of music that made you cry?

To be honest with you I cry quite a lot actually. I really am a weepy type of person. Most recently it was a piece of music that had been written by composer, vocalist and pianist Berenice Scott who I actually work with, as we are partners in a side project called Afterhere. Together we write a lot of music for TV and film. Bernie had written a piece of music for a project that we are pitching for and it was so beautiful. I actually watched it together with the scene which we had written it for and it actually did make me cry. That was literally just four days ago.

On that note Glenn, let me once again thank you for taking the time to speak to me today. As always it’s been a pleasure. I’m hoping to get along to the Birmingham O2 Academy on Saturday 17^th November to review and photograph the show. Who did you say it was that organises these gigs in the cold (laughter).

(Laughter) I know, I really do need to get that sorted out (laughter). We always have a good time whenever we play in Birmingham. It is one of my favourite gigs on the tour schedule. We love playing in Birmingham; we always have a really good gig. It’s been a pleasure Kevin and I hope to see you in Birmingham. You take care and bye for now.

Glenn Gregory, singer and songwriter with Heaven 17 chats with Kevin Cooper about the relationship between Martyn Ware and Phil Oakey, working with Tina Turner, the album Penthouse And Pavement and their forthcoming UK tour

Glenn Gregory is an English singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist with Heaven 17. With a musical career spanning more than 30 years, he first came to prominence in the early 1980s as co-founder and lead singer of the new wave and synthpop band Heaven 17, which released six singles that entered the Top 40 charts in the UK during the 1980s and 1990s, including Temptation, Come Live With Me, Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry, Sunset Now, This Is Mine, and (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang.

Gregory had known the founding members of The Human League for many years. He had been singing and playing bass guitar in bands with Ian Craig Marsh since 1973. In early 1981 he was contacted by Martyn Ware after the original membership of The Human League split, and was asked to join Heaven 17, a new band resulting from the split. However, by the late 1980s their popularity had declined. The band broke up in 1988, but reunited in 1996. However, Marsh left the band in 2007, but Ware and Gregory continued to perform as Heaven 17.

Whilst busy rehearsing for their forthcoming 35^th Anniversary Tour of the album Penthouse And Pavement, he took time out to have a chat with Kevin Cooper and this is what he had to say.

Glenn good morning how are you today?

I’m fine thank you, the sun is almost shining so all is good (laughter).

Dig out your wellies, its festival time (laughter).

Or should that be dig out your brollies its festival time (laughter). The weather is bloody rubbish. It depresses me so much. We played at a festival in Exeter last weekend in front of twelve thousand people, all really happy and then just as the music started the bloody rain started (laughter). It’s alright being on stage because you are undercover but you look out at the audience and they are as cheery as ever but they are soaking wet.

I think that it is just what we are now used to I suppose.

I guess so, yes it is. I played Glastonbury a couple of years ago now with La Roux and that was like a proper seventies festival weekend. It was really hot and dry and I just thought to myself this is how it should be (laughter).

The truth of the matter is that we have to have bad weather because it’s just in time for the tennis at Wimbledon. You couldn’t expect anything else.

That’s right, if only the powers that be cancelled Wimbledon then the rest of us could get on with summer.

Anyway enough about the weather, I suppose that we really should talk about music (laughter).

(Laughter) okay let’s do it.

Firstly, let me thank you for taking the time to speak to me.

It’s a pleasure.

And just how is life treating Glenn Gregory?

It’s good at the moment. We are very busy doing lots of different things and playing lots of festivals at the moment. Festivals tend to break-up your summer weekends because you always end up somewhere in the country, which is nice; it’s good fun. Martyn (Ware) and I are also busy working on some new Heaven 17 material which is good because we do so many different things, separately from Heaven 17. It is always sporadic whenever we do manage to get together, to be honest. At the moment I am working on an album with Berenice Scott who as you will know plays the keys with Heaven 17.

Berenice and I have struck up a musical partnership and we have been working on an album and we are going to call the band After Here, which hasn’t actually been put out there as yet, but I have to say that it is all sounding fantastic. We are currently working on the tenth song and so we are nearly there. It is sounding so good man, so good. So I am currently working on lots of different things, including a Chinese dance troupe, so as you can see there are always lots of different things going on. I love the variety so much.

If I had just spent the last thirty-five years in Heaven 17 I think that I would have got a bit bored with it all by now. It’s like a school trip whenever we do any Heaven 17 gigs these days (laughter). It means that I get to see my mate Martyn (laughter).

I was fortunate enough to photograph Heaven 17 a couple of years ago now at The Newark Festival and I thought that your voice was sounding as good as it ever has.

To be honest with you I actually think that my voice is better than it was. At the moment I have just come back from America after six weeks with Tony Visconti doing David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World tour. We have played thirty dates in six weeks and I feel as though I could sing all night at the moment (laughter). The voice is doing very well at the moment. I’m very proud of it actually because I had been doing three nights on and one night off for six weeks and I have to say that it didn’t disappear once. I didn’t have one spot of trouble with it. I must be doing something right. I think that it’s the beer and lack of warm up; that’s what helps me (laughter).

You have briefly mentioned that Heaven 17 have been around now for thirty-five years. Can you honestly believe that it is thirty-five years since you released Penthouse And Pavement?

In all honesty, no, it does not seem like thirty-five years. To be honest it seems like three and a half weeks. It was such an angry, exciting, vibrant period because The Human League had just split which wasn’t that friendly and both Martyn and Phil (Oakey) are both strong minded guys. They really are quite similar. At the time they weren’t speaking and both of them were insisting that they were in the right. Martyn wanted to prove to everyone that Heaven 17 were the best whilst Phil was hell bent on proving that The Human League were the best.

I don’t know if you are aware of the fact that both of those albums, Penthouse And Pavement by Heaven 17 and Dare by The Human League were written in the same studio because it was the only asset that Martyn and The Human League had got once they had split. They had got this little terrible studio in a derelict building which was filled with old knackered bits of equipment (laughter). It was all that they had and neither of them wanted to give it up. So both albums were written in that same studio. Heaven 17 worked nights, ten at night until ten in the morning, and then The Human League worked days, ten in the morning until ten at night (laughter).

I mean really honestly it was hilarious. How very Northern is that; writing albums on shift work (laughter). My mum used to shout out of the window “shut up, our Glenn’s on nights” (laughter). Even when I listen to that music now, it takes me back to those times. In fact I can even remember the curries that we ate and who went to fetch them. It is thirty-five years and it really does not feel it.

You have toured the album before haven’t you?

Yes that’s right, we have and at that point we tried to make it deliberately as much like the record as we could. Obviously things have changed and so the way that we now perform those songs has changed. Over the years the way that we have performed the songs has changed and the songs themselves have evolved and changed a little bit over that period of time.

The tour is being billed as being a fresh interpretation of the album. Just how loyal to the original album will the songs be?

They are still the same songs but the equipment that we use has changed. When we toured the album the last time, we deliberately went back and used the old stuff that we had used on the original recording. What can I say, it’s the bigger, fulfilled, new version of the album. The songs are still exactly the same songs; no one need be afraid, we haven’t changed them in anyway whatsoever. It’s just kind of the full fat version (laughter). It is simply how both the album and Heaven 17 have evolved. I have been working on some of the tracks for the past couple of weeks and I took another look at Geisha Boys And Temple Girls and Soul Warfare.

I had forgotten just how funky they were. They are so funky, it’s amazing. In fact when you listen to them now they are so fresh and so funky they could have been written by Mark Ronson. All of the songs on the album sound really good; for instance Play To Win sounded brilliant.

You have mentioned Soul Warfare which I have to say was my favourite track on the album. What was yours?

My favourite track is one that most people forget about but whenever I hear it being played I just really love it and it is Song With No Name. It’s the song which always seems to disappear and is easily forgotten. I have been trying to relearn it because it is a really wordy song is that one (laughter). When I first heard it again I thought ‘what, I have got to learn all that lot again. Why the hell didn’t we write something simple’ (laughter). But we didn’t and I really do love that song; I love singing it.

When you were listening back to the album now, were there any shocks or surprises?

I think that the only shocks and surprises for me were only good ones because I think that the album really does sound so new and fresh in a way that was almost born out of necessity. The equipment we used was still at that point where there were no computers, so it is all analogue. It was just the equipment that we had in the studio. When you listen to it there is nothing there, it is just like a skeleton. And that is what the surprising thing is to me, just how little there is there. But on the other side of the coin that is why I personally feel that the album has lasted so long and that is why it sounds so good.

It’s not over bloated and it doesn’t sound dated purely because it is so skeletal and it is just the bare bones of the idea. I love it.

Back in 1981 did you and Martyn realise that you had got something special?

We loved the album and we were trying our best not to give people the opportunity to say that there were now two Human Leagues about because they had split. With that in mind we were searching for a new way and I think that very, very luckily (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang was the first song that we wrote. We had got the backing track together with the melody and then suddenly Martyn decided that the song needed a bass guitar solo in the middle (laughter). Whilst it was kind of random I could almost see where he was coming from (laughter).

What you have to remember is that at that time we were still based in Sheffield and we simply didn’t know any bass players. What we were imagining was a funkadelic, Rick James kind of bass sound. That was who we thought we were at that point in time (laughter). And again by shear chance I was earning a bit of money by working at The Crucible Theatre as a stage hand over the Christmas period, doing the panto, oh yes I was (laughter). I just happened to say in the Green Room one day “does anyone know any bass guitar players” and this very young seventeen year old really quiet little black guy slowly put his hand up and said “I play a bit of bass”.

It was John Wilson and I said “bring your bass in tomorrow and tomorrow afternoon at lunchtime we will go down to the studio and play some bass”. So John came down to the studio and he played that bass guitar solo on (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang once, with his coat on; he didn’t even take his coat off, on a right handed bass that he was playing upside down because he was left handed. We were just on the floor like “oh my god” (laughter). And then he said, “that sounds like Play To Win doesn’t it”, and then he said “is that ok because I have only just bought that bass from a second hand shop because the bass isn’t really my first instrument, I am more of a rhythm guitarist” (laughter).

I can remember saying to him “shall we go down to your house and get your rhythm guitar” (laughter). So we did and he came back to the studio and so that is how we just stumbled upon this thing because we had got a very electronic backing track for (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang, and then suddenly half way through the song it becomes a complete hybrid of what we imagined funk dance music to be together with our electronic music. In a way that became the template for the album; the whole idea of two sides and the saying goodbye to the purely electronic side of the album, and ushering in the new Heaven 17 sound on the other side. I’m talking about it now like it was yesterday. It just feels like that. Every memory is really fresh.

Despite the hard work of learning all of the songs again, are you looking forward to touring the album once again?

Most definitely, yes, it is going to be great. I have got some ideas of how I want it to be lit; I have got some nice ideas and I want to keep it quite dark because it is quite a dark album really, Let’s All Make A Bomb, (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang; it really is quite a dark album (laughter). So I have got some ideas as to how I want it to look and be performed. So I really am looking forward to doing it.

All that I ask is that you don’t make it too dark as I am shooting you in Birmingham so at least give me half a chance (laughter).

Really, well don’t worry, it won’t be too dark (laughter).

Just to be on the safe side I will bring a torch with me.

(Laughter) who’s that photographer…oh don’t worry it’s alright he had prior warning (laughter).

If I may I would like to speak about B.E.F. (British Electric Foundation) for a moment. I can remember seeing you on The Tube singing backing vocals for Tina Turner on the cover of Al Greens Let’s Stay Together. What was she like to work with?

I have to be totally honest with you and say that she really was an absolute joy. Quite often, anyone who is that good and that professional are just a joy because she had been through it all, done it all, and she met us and she must have thought that we were from Mars to be honest (laughter). I remember the first day that she came into the studio and there was just me, Martyn, Ian and a Fairline and she said “where is the rest of the band” and Ian just pointed to the Fairline and said “it’s there” (laughter). Tina turned around, looked at her manager Roger and said “what the fuck have you got me involved with” (laughter).

After that, when we started working together she really liked it, she loved it actually. We first recorded Ball Of Confusion with Tina and then very quickly after that she asked us if we would like to get involved in working with her again and that is when we did Let’s Stay Together which thankfully became a massive hit. In fact that was the first ever 12” number one over in America. It was massive.

I was fortunate enough to speak to Al Green and when I mentioned Let’s Stay Together he actually said that he thought that Tina’s version was in fact better than his.

Now that I did not know, that is proper special that is (laughter). Right, now that you have told me that I am going to turn the lights up in Birmingham just for you now (laughter).

I have always thought that you, Martyn and Ian were personally responsible for Tina Turner’s second career.

To be frank certain things came together to make it all happen. I remember when me, Martyn and Ian first met her over in Los Angeles, she opened the door and I shouted out “it’s Tina Turner” (laughter). We just couldn’t believe it because we were all massive fans of hers especially River Deep, Mountain High. In fact I think that The Human League even covered that song at some point. It was just always a big favourite of theirs. So I have to say that it was a joy to get to work with her. But at that time she was playing small places in Las Vegas, roadhouses almost and then it did change. So yes, I would have to say that we certainly had a hand in it.

On the tour you are going to be joined by Glen Matlock (The Sex Pistols) Mari Wilson and Peter Hooton (The Farm). Who was responsible for those choices?

They were all down to Martyn actually. If you look back over the B.E.F. albums there have always been slightly unusual choices of singers together with slightly unusual choices of songs and I think that is what he likes to do. They are all brilliant artists, they have got fantastic voices and that is what Martyn likes. It doesn’t have to be a name that is going to blow everybody’s socks off; he likes to blow peoples socks off with them realising that they were going to get their socks blown off. That’s the joy of B.E.F. and that is why Martyn does it like that.

Some of the choices of the songs that they are going to be singing, I can’t tell you because I am not allowed to say, but what I will say is that even I can’t wait to hear them. I keep listening to them during rehearsals and think “that is going to be brilliant” (laughter).

When you and Martyn formed Heaven 17 back in 1980 could you have ever envisaged still being involved in the music business some thirty-six years later?

I have to say that I don’t think that you ever think that far ahead if I am honest. I didn’t even consider it. I never even considered what I would be doing in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time. As time goes on you do start to think ‘what am I going to do now’ but that comes a little later (laughter). Luckily now for me I do so many different things; I am always either in the studio or playing live and I probably turn down more things than I would like to but only because I am so busy. So I love it, and I am doing such diverse things that, as I said earlier, whenever we get together as Heaven 17 it just feels like I am coming home.

There have been so many great acts to come out of Sheffield, why do you think that this is?

I can only really answer for us, but at the time that we were writing music even before The Human League, I am talking from the ages of about fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, Sheffield was a pretty depressed place. All of the cutlery factories had gone, all of that had collapsed and the city centre was surrounded by empty buildings. The steel works were on their way down and then Thatcher came along and buggered everything up. If we wanted to see bands playing live we would have to travel to Manchester, Leeds or Liverpool simply because there wasn’t a lot going on in Sheffield.

There was obviously The City Hall for the bigger bands, and that was great, but you would never get to see any young up and coming bands. Sheffield simply didn’t have that infrastructure. So what we did was, we kind of built it ourselves. We would put on nights which I know sounds normal now but it wasn’t back then. We would find these old derelict buildings, find out who owned them and go and ask the owner if we could rent that building off them. The guys would think that we were completely insane, a filthy derelict building with an outside toilet (laughter). There was a hundred years of grime everywhere and they would rent it to us for a fiver a week.

We would move in. I remember The Human League having a studio in one, and we just made it all work for us. Sheffield is a very doing place; it is full of people who do, who want to be involved and not just sit back and watch and I think that is what it is. We all knew that it was all going on down there in London so we thought fuck you we will do it up here on our own. That’s what it was like for us. We started our own fanzine called Gunrubber and I remember the first issue having ‘Oh London up yours’ on the cover (laughter). It was all very much a case of we are going to do it our way.

How are things now between Martyn and Phil; has the rift healed?

I am pleased to say that it has pretty much healed. We toured with The Human League a while back on The Steel City Tour with ABC and I am glad to say that tour was the end of any lingering animosity between the two of them. It was tetchy at first because the two of them are just so very much alike, both strong minded guys, and the sad thing in all of it was that they had been friends since school and you know what that’s like when you go that far back. But I am pleased to say that they are fine now. There have been several attempts by me and a host of other people to get the original Human League back together to perform but being honest I don’t think that it is ever going to happen. I think that is a massive shame, as I would personally pay good money to stand at the front to watch that.

Especially if they used the slides of Captain Scarlet and Joe 90 whilst performing in Perspex boxes.

(Laughter) it would all have to be like that. Its brilliant isn’t it (laughter).

On that note let me once again thank you for taking the time to speak to me. It’s been fun and I am looking forward to seeing you in Birmingham. Remember to leave a light on for me.

(Laughter) I will just for you (laughter). It’s been a pleasure Kevin and I really hope that I get to see you in Birmingham. Cheers and bye for now.