Steve strange is the sort of bloke the press either hate or hate. The proverbial whipping boy harangued for being a clothes-horse, a hedonist, and having the audacity to step out of the night-club scene to make records. Scoundrel! Funny how they took to Boy George though, isn't it. Musical tastes aside Steve was perhaps the first into the water. From the wreckage of punk he must take a fair amount of credit for the re- emergence of the 'night-club' attitude and all it entails. Image and presentation became once again important for bands. Whatever critics may have said others certainly haven't feared to tread where Mr.Strange has gone before. Obviously he didn't go alone but he was a catalyst in the forming of a few aspects of the music business; video being a good example. Parasite or prophet? We've never really found out. Analysts of his work have usually sniped at the easy targets and Steve does tend to leave himself open to criticism. He has been accused of being a glorified peacock with nothing concrete to contribute and being merely an opportunist. Indeed after reading his press cuttings I was surprised that he could even string a sentence together.
With a cup of coffee in his hand- no he doesn't always quaff expensive cocktails, he sat in the compact DEBUT office and attempted to put the record straight or at least straighter.
"I know that we please a lot of people with the music that we produce. I use to really worry about what people wrote about me in magazines or said when I was out at night and having a good time. I work hard at doing what I do. I wasn't just at the palace drinking, getting out of it and having a good time. There's a day scene that makes- or didn't make the Palace work from a nine to five point of view.
"When I go out, I go out for a good time the same as anybody does, but maybe it's because I'm in the public eye that people pick up on it. I don't worry about that sort of thing anymore, as long as what I'm doing is up to standard and quality and I know it's pleasing people then I'm quite happy.
"The funniest thing about it all is that the magazines that slagged us off now publish fashion features. All they wrote about us was 'why should this clothes-horse be involved in music?' I think I've become a much harder person now, I think you have to in order to survive. If you start taking every criticism to heart you'd be in a white room with a padded cell." Does he consider himself a trend setter?
"I don't think that anything that comes out is genuinely new anymore because most of it has more-or-less been done. You can go for the the completely obscure and then try and do something new but most of it is taken from the old pages of history books and then adapted in a new way. So no, I've never stood up and said 'Look what I'm doing is completely new'. It Just seems that whatever I did people latched on to and copied in the high street stories.
"To me the presentation with videos were like mini-movies and the way they were presented was like an added entertainment. People want to be entertained that's why people like Gorge and Adam do so well 'cause it's like pure entertainment. It's like show business and that's what people want and that's what we were giving them with our videos. When we do the tour it'll be more than just a straight tour it'll be more of a spectacular.
"I'm still doing image things but I think it did open a lot of doors for people like George or Marlyn however you can't live on that, you've just got to carry on and do your own things."
After a two year absence, Visage are now preparing to return with a new album called 'Beat Boy' and have paved the way with a new single, 'Love Glove'. But why has the wait been so long?
"We're now out of the contract with the management company that we sacked. I'm glad I made the decision to wait rather than release records and still let them own them. We had to fight for two years to get the tapes back, of the material we had recorded.
"There's always a clause in those contracts which you miss which even a solicitor misses. You think you know what you're doing but there's always one little clause in there and it's aggravating to know that they've got you. It drives me mad and it's been two years of frustration knowing that we had the music. Now we've had to scrap half the album because it just didn't work, it started to get dated and now we're out of the contract it's all one mad rush.
"We're bringing out a video documentary of the history of Visage from the first single to the present. Not just all the singles, but a documentary with footage from what went on in the Blitz; Club for Hell; Club for Heroes; the fashion show I took to Paris to launch 'The Anvil'; then up to the present with the new video which is going to be done like Fassbinder's Querelle. We will also be doing a tour, hopefully in November.
"I'm much happier with the situation as it is now. For instance The Anvil to me was a really mixed album because Midge (Ure) and I weren't getting on very well. It was a very confusing time of recording. Now the basis and structure of the band is much more together and permanent. When we were writing the material for the last album we'd rehearse for six weeks and write material in a block and then go and record it. To my mind there was too much time spent in a studio and then doing the mixing, also Ultravox were then away.
"Now I do demos at home with Steve Barnacle, he's got an 8-track studio at home, which is much easier for me, and the music is entirely different. It's much more of an aggressive sound. We've not used synths as much and there's hardly any drum machine. It's just the basics of bass, drums, guitars and lots of sax and flute. Gary and Steve Barnacle are on bass and keyboards, Andy Barnett plays guitar and Rusty (Egans) is on drums." After a very successful stint at the Camden Palas Steve has now moved on. What were his reasons for leaving?
"I want to concentrate more on Visage. In the contract it said that I was suppose to be in the Palace one or two nights a week and if I'm not there for three weeks or so they got very aggressive about me not being there. I really don't want to have that burden anymore, 'cause if I've got to work on Visage that's first and I've always said that. I've always tried to get out of clubs whilst the going has been good and I do want to do a new club but I'm not going to rush into it. What we're doing is a sort of party once a month. I also want to open a European nightclub with swimming pools and things and four different clubs inside but that's not going to happen for at least nine months."
During his two year absence from music, Steve had time to work on some of the projects he'd been planning but hadn't had the previous time for. One of these was the Creative Workforce. I asked him what exactly that was all about.
"We started in November and we represent four photographers, two make-up artists, two hair dressers, two choreographers and we're expanding to video people. We represent these people in their own fields. We take on people like make-up artists so that they can do tests and things if they haven't got a book. The same with hairdressers. We're taking on say three photographers outside the established photographers, to work with Peter Ashworth and Dave Levin on sessions and to learn more things. Moreover, generally it's representing people that have perhaps been ripped off by other management companies. I don't wish to actually grab hold of somebody and mould them and work with them like that, I don't believe in that." Finally I asked Steve how he came from being a school boy in Wales to being where he is now.
"I think it was a lot to do with my parents' divorce, something which made me aware of what was going on. My mother was very business minded and so was my father, but it was my mother that was the driving force behind my father. When she left him he went bankrupt. He then took an overdose and he had a tumor. I think it made me very much aware of the hardness of the outside world and reality and how to survive if something goes wrong. There's always something I can do.
"I knew there was nothing for me in Wales anyway. At school I never fitted in with all the kids. They just looked at me as this sort of weirdo and I didn't really want to be a rugby player or work down the mines, so I just left and moved to London. But even in Wales I was doing a club thing when I was fifteen, putting bands on etc. It didn't work really well but at least I tried to do something down there.
"Then I moved and got involved. I suppose it was a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time for a lot of things and also a lot of luck. However luck doesn't last forever, you've got to make it work. Maybe I did want to make things work and drove for it with ambition. I don't look at it that way but people tell me I'm very ambitious. I've got a lot of drive, a lot of push and if I want to make something happen I can make it happen. I never saw it like that, it was just the things that I did and how I worked at doing it. It was a day to day thing with me. "My one message is actually to have faith in yourself and if you believe in what you're doing, one day you'll get the recognition you deserve. If I can do it a lot of other people can."
So endeth the first lesson. The lad certainly seems to work hard and due to lack of space, half the projects Steve talked about haven't even been mentioned. As he himself put it, "when the time is right they'll see fruition." Love him or hate him, his work has and will be judged by whether the public want it and are prepared to pay for it. So far he hasn't done too badly and he's certainly well off as far as energy goes. I don't know where he gets it from.