VINCE CLARKE: Proven success; the hit songwriter who bailed out of Depeche Mode; a nice guy who hasn’t let success spoil him; deep but sometimes has difficulty articulating his feelings; favourite phrase of the moment “mucking about”. Here’s Vince on The Split …
“I probably thought about it for three months previous to the actual time I did leave. I was kind of unsure about the way things were happening for a while but when we were away abroad the last time I stayed a while in Paris and thought it over properly.”
Is it correct that too many demands on your time was a major factor?
“I liked the idea of experimenting with various things, whether it be stuff for live shows or stuff in the studio and there was never enough time with the band, with touring, gigging, stroke-touring-stroke-gigging – the normal rock’n’roll story! I’d bought an MC4 (computer) and it’d just been gathering dust for months in my bedroom. I thought I’d like to muck about with one of these things and I never got the chance to do anything like that.”
Did you know what you were going to do when you left the band?
“No, I didn’t actually. I had no idea whatsoever. What I kind of planned to do was just sit at home for about six months to see what would happen. I just wanted the chance to muck about with the equipment I’d got at home, basically!”
Had you thought of going solo?
“I’d never go solo! I haven’t got it in me! I haven’t got the confidence, I suppose.”
So what attracted you to Alison? It seems a pretty unlikely combination on the face of it …
“I knew Alison had a good voice and I got fed up with doing nothing at home. I wrote this song and I decided I’d like to record it, so really I just needed someone to sing it for me. I thought it would be a nice kind of mixture – little cute electronic music with a kind of raucous, raw-singing blues singer. Apart from that, she’s the only singer I know!”
What about yourself?
“I can’t sing for the life of me! I’m concentrating on keyboards for now.”
Have you considered any other projects yet?
“I thought I might just carry on writing songs but I don’t know – when you write a song, it’s something you want to record yourself as you like it, rather than give it to someone to fuck up or sing the wrong way from the way you meant it. You want your own interpretation there.”
Have you solved your problems with lyrics yet?
(Laughs) “Well, towards the end of being in the band, I started writing more straightforward lyrics. Just more sensible, rather than nonsensical. Now the lyrics we’re doing – I think they’re more serious. Not just to be serious, but not just words for the sake of the words like they were before. We’ve got a point of view to put across in the first place rather than making up a point of view!”
We hear you’re planning live shows with a computer …
“I’ve ordered this computer that’s similar to the MC4 but rather than operate four synthesizers like the MC4 does – like a multi-sequencer – it’s actually got eight voices in it already. The whole computer is the synth and the programmer.”
“What I intend to do is programme the whole set into that computer so that rather than use tapes or anything for backing tracks, all the music will come out of the computer. On top of that we’re getting into slide projectors which are also programmable via computers and can be synched off the main computer, so the whole show will be electronic in the true sense of the word.”
“I’m all for electronic music, like computer music. There’s something about perfect synchronization and accuracy … I can’t play for the life of me. I got voted 19th Best Keyboard Player Of The Year in “Sounds” (laughs) and I never actually touched the keyboard! It was all programmed! Whether you should print that I don’t know!”
So how far off are the actual gigs?
“We’re putting the whole show together so I don’t want to start gigging and then find we haven’t got time to put the slides together. I’ve got to programme all the equipment so that’ll take a while. I hope to get the shows on the road this year, and what gigs we play will depend on how the whole show turns out.”
If Yazoo are successful, how are you going to avoid the same traps you encountered with Depeche Mode?
“Basically we’ve got no commitments. We’re not a hip band or anything, and we’re with an independant company that understands. So were Depeche but I feel I’ve got a better perspective on the way things work within the music business. So we’re more independent, I think.”
You’re planning on staying with Daniel Miller at Mute then?
“Oh yeah. He’s given us all the support we need and the freedom that we rather like. He doesn’t interfere and he doesn’t say we’ve got to have a product out next week or next month. We’re free to do what we like and he backs us up which is really nice.”
And at the moment you’re in the middle of an album?
“The stuff we’re doing – it’s turned out really strange. It’s a real mixture of types of music and we’ve got into more experimental music – tape loops and stuff like that – which is really interesting. What I’d really like to do is get into the psychological effects of sound on the brain. That’s my ambition.”
That sounds very manipulative!
“Indeed …”
ALISON MOYET: The unknown quantity; also comes from Basildon; officially rechristened Genevieve but generally known as Alf; laughs a lot; honest and frank – too frank for the hipsters certainly. Here’s Alison on her recent musical past as a vocalist in blues and R’n’B …
“For about four years I’ve been playing with various bands – only basically in Southend and the South East circuit. I haven’t been able to break out from the circuit at all – that was all I’d been doing.”
Haven’t you forgotten your year in The Vandals, Basildon’s first punk band?
(Laughs) “Oh yeah – there was that! It was a really good scene because it was so sort of innocent. There was about ten of us; it was a really good crowd, good fun. We used to play in the street without any instruments or something really silly like that! A good fun thing – just being a bunch of idiots. It finished when the skins came out and started to beat us up, so we decided we weren’t that keen on it after all!”
So how long have you known Vince?
“I’ve known him for about four years, to say hello to, not to get into deep conversations with. We sometimes went to the same parties and found ourselves singing to his guitar.”
His synthesiser and your R’n’B are pretty far removed, aren’t they?
“Oh yeah, definitely. I would have chosen to do blues, I think, if I’d really had the choice but as I say it’d been four years… My main love is singing so you might as well do one thing – there’s no point in not doing either. I’d rather do this and then maybe when Vince decides he wants to go and become a fishmonger or something, I’ll be able to go back to it.”
Will you be doing all the Yazoo vocals?
“I generally do most of the singing but there are some times when we want macho men backing vocals and Vince pops up now and again!”
Do you write as well, and how about for Yazoo?
“I have done a little. Vince is obviously more fluent when it comes to songwriting – especially when I’m used to writing more blues and R’n’B stuff. I’ve always been very traditionalist when it comes to blues and it’s difficult for me to see blues played on synthesisers! But when I come to terms with that, maybe I’ll write a few blues songs as well.”
We understand that your partnership has worked so well that it’s been extended from just the “Only You” single?
“We only wanted to get this record out and make a bit of money out of it – that’s why we chose something so commercial – but we worked together so well that we decided to carry it on.”
Will you be adding guitars to the synthesisers?
“No. It’s just going to be straight synthesisers and computers. And me!”
Aren’t you going to miss the guitar?
“Yeah, I think so! But I suppose all you’ve got to do is look at it as another medium, just see it as a replacement. I mean, guitars are never going to go; they’re always going to be there to go back to when the day’s over. My main love is the old four-piece guitar band. I wouldn’t generally go out and listen to a band with a synthesiser player. My idea of a night out is still Dr. Feelgood in Southend!”
Originally printed in Masterbag Magazine, issue 7, April 15-29 1982.