With international hits such as “Dance Hall Days,” “Let’s Go!,” “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” and “To Live and Die in L.A.,” Wang Chung became one of the most successful pop bands of the 1980s – and they’re still celebrating that era with their current “I Want My ’80s” North American tour (Rick Springfield, John Waite, and Paul Young are also in the lineup). In January, the English duo released a retrospective, Clear Light, Dark Matter, which spans almost every aspect of their career, including original demos and live versions of their hits, and more recent material. They’re also planning to do a series of special shows to commemorate their work on the soundtrack for the 1985 film To Live and Die in L.A. (the title track remains one of their signature songs), and they promise that more details about that will be announced soon. Sitting down with The Big Takeover before hitting the stage at their recent Newark, New Jersey stop, co-frontmen Jack Hues (vocals, guitar) and Nick Feldman (bass, vocals) discuss their long and successful career, from the very beginning in the late 1970s up through now – and what they have planned next.
What can people expect when they see your set on this tour?
JACK HUES: There’s enough [time] to play the hits that everyone would want to hear, and then play some additional tracks that people still know, because a lot of our music is in movies and commercials and computer games.
NICK FELDMAN: So we’ve got a pool of songs. We play all the biggest hits, but then we do a couple of other ones – just what we feel like doing on any given show.
You have some songs that are so well known, and that you must play at every show – so how do you keep that interesting for yourselves?
NICK FELDMAN: The audience response is so good – it’s hard not to get a lift, ourselves, from it. And we’re here to connect with the audience, so it’s fine.
When you first wrote these songs, did you have a feeling that they would go on to do as well as they have?
JACK HUES: No. I don’t think, as a writer, you ever feel that. Maybe “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” I think we were a bit more calculating about that. But then we were in a pretty backs against the wall situation.
NICK FELDMAN: I thought it was either the worst thing we’d ever done, or one of the best. So thank God it was one of the best!
When you first formed this band, how did you know that you were going to work so well together?
JACK HUES: Well, you never do, I don’t think. We’re not blessed with clairvoyance.
NICK FELDMAN: Actually, I held these auditions looking for a guitar player, and a lot of people applied to the advert I put in The Melody Maker, but I had a very good feeling about him. I chose him straightaway, because he was just really good. I had this quite complex chord sequence devised, which just about everyone couldn’t play. But he walked in, and I showed him, and he just did it. So we quickly connected well, creatively.
And then how did you go about creating your distinctive sound?
JACK HUES: I think we were just experimenting [with] certain sounds that we were using, like the guitar sound was a standard Stratocaster through a particular amplifier. But I guess my voice is distinctive, and not like anything else. That kind of came through. I wasn’t the singer to begin with. Nick was singing, and then we got a guy called Glenn Gregory, who went on to form Heaven 17; Glenn went on to great things.
NICK FELDMAN: We had this band called 57 Men. Glenn was put on vocals. Leigh Gorman [who later joined] Bow Wow Wow was the bass player. And then it was us. So three successful ’80s bands came out of that band.
JACK HUES: But I guess our sound just came out of the writing, and our particular way of hearing stuff. That’s very hard to define what that is. These things seem like, “Oh, you must have had some sort of plan or an idea of how it was going to go” – I don’t think we ever did, really, apart from wanting to be successful. That was the plan, but I don’t know how we got there.
NICK FELDMAN: I don’t think either of us would have guessed we’d still be so active now as Wang Chung.
What do you think it is about what you created that makes it resonate so strongly with listeners?
NICK FELDMAN: I think the ’80s have endured. That era still means something for people. And MTV and everything, so visually, it’s still embedded in people’s psyches. And I think we came up with some good melodies and good songs, so I think that helps.
JACK HUES: I remember, when we had “Dance Hall Days” pretty much finished, we had a meeting with Quincy Jones, who was Michael Jackson’s producer. And they wanted to use “Dance Hall Days”; they were thinking of putting it on Thriller and doing a version of it. But Quincy said, “We love it, but you’re going to have to change the lyrics because it’s too weird for Michael’s audience.” And I think we did try and change it.
NICK FELDMAN: It was sort of more bland, wasn’t it?
JACK HUES: And I think we wanted it for us, really. Even though, in the short term, it would have been great to have had a massive hit on a Michael Jackson record. In the long term, we probably wouldn’t be doing this.
What made each of you want to be a musician? Because it is a hard career to choose…
JACK HUES: That’s what they say, isn’t it? For me, it was seeing The Beatles on TV in the UK – hearing their music was a total inspiration. I think I was like seven or eight years old when I heard their music, so kind of young to really be getting it. But they had all the bits that informed my musical development, in the sense of the songwriting being so catchy, but also musically interesting. When I started learning the guitar, trying to play a Beatles song was much more tricky than it at first seemed. It was really challenging to try and emulate those songs. But it was a great musical education to be having when you’re between seven and twelve years old.
NICK FELDMAN: I probably saw the same show that you’re talking about. I just remember being at my friend’s house, and The Beatles came on and my friend’s dad was like, “They’ve got long hair, it’s outrageous!” And I thought, “This is great!” I remember seeing a red electric guitar in the window of the local music shop, which I thought was the most exotic thing I’d ever seen in my life. I think that helped, as well.
JACK HUES: Those things were very inaccessible in those days. My dad had a dance band – he was a saxophone player. And one evening, his guitar player left his guitar at our house overnight because he didn’t have room in his car for it or something. And I remember sneaking into the hallway and opening this case and inside was this powder blue Fender Stratocaster. I just remember looking at it and thinking that it just seemed so completely unattainable. There was no way you would ever own something like that.
Any chance there will be new music from you after this tour?
JACK HUES: We’re thinking about some new music. I’ve been working on a solo album. I’ve done two in the last four or five years, so I’ve got a third one that’s going to come out early next year, I think. It’s all recorded; just got to mix it and find someone to help me release it.
NICK FELDMAN: And I’ve got loads of stuff written that I’m going to record, some of which I hope Jack and I can work on as Wang Chung. And the rest of it I’ll do solo, like what he’s done. We’re very productive. We’re very creatively active, both of us.
What do you think of the legacy that you’ve created with this band so far?
JACK HUES: Nick worked in A&R for a while – after Wang Chung [went on hiatus in 1990], we had this twenty year space where we did other things. I remember you saying that it was when you were on the other side of the desk that you realized that what we’d done was actually quite impressive.
NICK FELDMAN: Yes.
JACK HUES: Which is very hard to do when you’re the artist, because as an artist you think, “Well, I’ve only got this far. They’ve all got that far, and we’ve still got this to do.” It’s just a massive sort of self-criticism. But I think doing these [current] shows, you get the sense, “Actually, yeah, we are part of this culture.” And by the culture, I mean this legacy of music. Now the ’80s seem to have joined that classic golden era of music, in a sense, which is great. To be part of that is an amazing feeling.
NICK FELDMAN: I think we’re very in touch with that now. We really appreciate what we’ve achieved, and I think it’s inspired us to still be creatively active and to look forward, as well as back.
