The following text is taken from the inner sleeve of the '83 US-LP "Fade To Grey - The Singles Collection" (Cat.-No. 815 347-1 Y-1):
No label bothered them quite as much being called a 'supergroup'. Obviously, the consortium built originally of Rusty Egan, Midge Ure, Billy Currie, John McGeogh, Dave Formula, Barry Adamson and Steve Strange had cast a long collective shadow on the changing musical fabric of late 70's. So deep were their individual resumes that the family tree stands as a tangle of cross references.
But VISAGE was not going to be associated with the eponymous fast-buck Titanics formed by convalescing hippies. This was a different deal and at its invention in 1979, VISAGE was truly a child of necessity.
There was a void to be filled. It was the historic 'Blitz' period in London and the lights had come on again in a manner of speaking. Steve and Rusty had captured the hearts and minds of the urbane youth caught between punk's pathos and the downwardly mobile disco scene. As club entrepreneurs, they had brought their nomadic nightlife experiments - stealing through Soho as furtively as a floating crap game - to rest at the Blitz Club in Covent Garden.
Rusty's turntables and Steve's fashionable turns opened the door and the floor to any suggestion. Distinctions blurred and there was no true single label for what went on. It just moved fast and the music was woven, made to measure, for the Blitz figure which seemed to change shape every night. But to play other people's music was too second hand for the visionary situation. VISAGE would give the whole movie a fresh soundtrack.
And true to it's announced intentions, VISAGE mirrored the chemistry of the club. Their music was a melting pot, gathering swatches of influence from Europe, America and England for something truly non-partisan and desegrated by design. Beat with meat, you could call it. Manna for the dance floor. Soon, the word spread and Blitz was cast by the world as the ground zero for the futurism that was taking over the pop charts.
VISAGE then started doing something for which it hadnÕt really planned. It sold records, lots of records like other bands. Unfortunately, they weren't meant to be a band. A collective, a project, a halfway house but not a band. And when the energy of Blitz started to dissipate, VISAGE lost its focus and began to erode for the reasons that usually befall an orphan band.
But this be no eulogy. The enclosed retrospective closes one chapter as it begins another. VISAGE still exists and the present compact configuration of Rusty, Steve and Dave will undoubtedly go on to create new com- plexions, some of which are hinted at herein. The last time I spoke to Rusty he vowed that if VISAGE was going to be a band, Òit is gonna be a real band.Ó
The only promise is promise itself.
Jonathan Gross, October 1983