Photo by Helen Kinkaid
It’s been nearly forty years since the British synthpop band Blancmange last toured North America – but the wait will soon be over when they play the prestigious Cruel World festival in Pasadena, California, on May 17, immediately followed by more shows in San Francisco, Denver, New York, and Mississauga, Ontario (for some dates, Midge Ure will share the bill). The band has also been busy on other fronts, releasing a new “best of” collection, Everything Is Connected Too, in April. Calling from a rehearsal studio in London, frontman Neil Arthur tells The Big Takeover about the tour, his songwriting process, and what comes next for him.
It’s been a long time since you played in the U.S. How do you feel as you’re coming up on these shows in May?
NEIL ARTHUR: Really excited about it. It feels like it’s been quite a journey already, in many respects, preparing for this. But we’re going to come over and play Cruel World [festival] and I’m just very excited about that, coming over to Pasadena and playing. It’s such a privilege to be asked. It’s 39 years since we’ve played there. We’ve got to do it sometime!
What can people expect when they come to one of these shows?
NEIL ARTHUR: They’re going to hear songs from the very beginning of Blancmange, and they’ll be hearing some of the newer stuff, as well, so we can kind of give them a taste of the old and the new. I’m lucky enough to be joined onstage by I Speak Machine – it’s just absolutely fantastic that Tara Busch is going to be playing keyboards with us, and I’m just absolutely delighted to have her come along. We’ll be making a lot of noise! There’s a lot of electronics.
_What do you think it is about your songs like “Living on the Ceiling” and “Don’t Tell Me” that have made them stand the test of time like they have?
NEIL ARTHUR: Oh, blimey, that’s really kind of you to say that. And if some people think that they have stood the test of time, that’s lovely. I’m really, really happy and very proud to be able to play those songs. But I’m also really keen to introduce people to some of the newer stuff, I’m very keen on playing a mixture of the old and the new. It’s really important for me to emphasize that. I’m not really one for nostalgia. Nostalgia is like history without the guilt. I’m not interested in it.
And you just put out “Everything Is Connected Too” not long ago. What’s the feedback you’ve been getting on that so far?
NEIL ARTHUR: The record company tells me it is doing well!
What’s next for you after this tour?
NEIL ARTHUR: I’m currently writing two Blancmange albums at the moment. I am working on a covers album with Vince Clarke and Benge. I’m going back down to Benge’s studio next week to mix some more of that. That’s been underway for a long time – there’s been stops and starts, but it’s nearing completion now, which is nice.
As you write songs, are there any particular themes or emotions that you find yourself always wanting to get across?
NEIL ARTHUR: I don’t consciously look for a theme. I tend to observe things around me and then put my twist on it. I like to leave a certain amount of ambiguity. I mean, they’re only songs, after all. Sometimes, yeah, I get something off my chest. But maybe it’s the way I’m wired, I like to kind of twist a few things ’round and maybe disguise them. I’m dyslexic, so it may have some link to that, as well.
How did you learn to write the way you do?
NEIL ARTHUR: [At first], I was very nervous about anybody seeing [my writing] because I was very embarrassed about my dyslexia. Because I think at that point, if you were dyslexic, there wasn’t really anything in the normal school setup to help you really cope with it. Even the teachers didn’t bloody know. So I always felt slightly embarrassed that I couldn’t spell. Thank goodness now I can write down anything and get it correct, and sometimes the predictive text is more productive, I would say, than what I write! So it’s actually brought me up some really much better ideas than I initially put in. But I remember I wrote “Living on the Ceiling” in an old diary that I’d picked up from a job I had working for a council in London, like a summer job from college. And I wrote the lyrics down on one of the pages from this year-old diary. My partner – who I’m still with, actually – said, “Can I have a look at this? Show me some things you’ve written down.” She said “Look, it’s the idea that counts. It doesn’t matter that you can’t spell it. Do you think an author, when he or she sends the book in, there aren’t mistakes in it? It’s the idea. And that’s why you have editors.” And it was with her encouragement that I started sharing those with [former member] Stephen Luscombe.
How did you know that synthpop would be the right vehicle for your ideas?
NEIL ARTHUR: We kind of fell into it, really. We e were always interested in an alternative noise making route. When we started, we’d use kitchen utensils and we’d make tape loops and play bits and pieces of Tupperware or whatever. Or use a cheap guitar and put it through some homemade amplifier, just so it didn’t sound like a normal guitar. Every so often, the opportunity would come along to borrow a synthesizer. It just seemed these were instruments to express yourself on, without necessarily being able to play very well. We weren’t musicians, really. We could make noises, but we weren’t trained musicians at all. I was never interested in being in a conventional band, ever. Just didn’t appeal to me.
How did you and Stephen Luscombe meet in the first place?
NEIL ARTHUR: At art college. Stephen was with an experimental band, and I was part of it, and we played in the local bar and saw each other. We ended up chatting and found that we had really similar interests in many things outside music. But in music, it was a shared love of Captain Beefheart, Kraftwork, Pere Ubu. And then we got talking about electronics and trying to make noises with kitchen utensils. I’ve got to say, Stephen and I were like chalk and cheese, and I think for us that was the fire and the heat of it all, because we are very different people. We were always firing ideas off each other, and surprising each other, I think. That was nice.
After putting Blancmange on hold in 1986, what made you decide to resurrect it in 2011?
NEIL ARTHUR: I wasn’t exactly in a rush to do it. Stephen and I remain really good friends, and still are. I love him dearly. But we talked about [reuniting] over the years and never really wanted to do it. And I had a studio in Brixton, and I had written about eight songs. I thought some of them really kind of reminded me of what maybe I might have taken to Stephen and said, “What do you think of that? Do your thing to it.” Which is what we used to do – swap ideas. And I played them to him, and he said he really liked them. So we finished them and added a few more. And that became the [2011] Blanc Burn album. And I thought that would be it. But I think I really started enjoying that process, and talked about taking it live. It became very apparent that Stephen would never be able to do that, but he gave me a kick up the ass and said, “Get on with it.” I just really feel happy when I’m being creative. Nobody’s stopping me, so I just keep going!
